No need to travel into outer space to try and find smart and strange creatures that are as about as different to humans as it possibly to be. They are already out there, they have three hearts, blue blood and eight arms, they use color to communicate, suction cups to grab things and jet propulsion to move. Some of then can even become any shape they want ! To their prey , they are stealthy and murderously efficient, they are the oceans Houdinis, one of the most amazing animals on this planet has to be the octopus/cuddle fish. Ancient, mysterious creatures that have been existence for over 296 million years ! Today we will be taking a look at these wonderful and alluring creatures.
Down in the mercy waters, people can run into giants, giant pacific octopuses, up to 30 feet long and weighing 272 Kg. These the probably the bases of the monster octopus in the old adventure stories, approaching divers, clasping them with the suction ups and holding them until the drown, but in today's time, that is at least not the case.
These creatures stay in depths up to 330 feet or more, one of the reasons they don't have any bones. They are one of the most flexible creatures on earth, the same size octopus can squeeze through as space the size of a quarter !
Surprisingly, a fact that isn't always known about octopus is that they have beaks, the only heard part of their anatomy. It looks very similar to a birds beak because the beak is made of the same material, keratin, also what our fingernails are made of.
The colossal squid beak.
They use these powerful beaks to hunt and eat whelks, clams, prawns,fish and other cephalopods. Their bite is very powerful, it can be well over 19,000 PSI, stronger than a bear or lion, one of the strongest in the world !
These majestic creatures use a form of communication so different, its one of the reasons why we consider cephalopods to be alien, and that is communication through color and shape. Some more than other cephalopods, can change their shape into almost any color or shape, given the right circumstance and environment. Scientists think that cephalopods are colorblind - at least when they are looking with their eyes. Researchers recently discovered that a cuttlefish's skin contains gene sequences that are usually only found in the retina, the part of the eye that takes in light. This may explain why cephalopods can change color to match their surroundings, even though their eyes probably cannot see color.
Of course, the main function of those two things were made for survival and hunting. For hunting purposes, these slick cephalopods use their camouflage to blend in with their environment and catch their prey by surprise. For their survival they can use the same camouflage to go unnoticed by other predators that might hunt them. They also have a special function most people are familiar with when it comes to knowing things about octopuses, and that's the ink the octopus give off. But did you know, not only does it disorientate their predators, it also tastes bad, so their predators can be put off by it and swim away. Blue ringed octopuses use poisons to protect themselves and hunt, they have one of the most dangers poisons on earth !
Octopuses and their family ( the cuttlefish and squid) are very different than other invertebrates on earth, having evolved with much larger nervous systems and better cognitive complexity over millions of years.
Most of the neurons in an octopus are found in its tentacles, which can independently touch, taste and also control basic functions without signal from its brain.
Octopus and vertebrate brains do not have any common anatomy but so support a variety of similar functions, also including some forms of short and long term memory, versions of sleep cycles, and the brain capacities to recognize curtain people and explore things through play.
An octopus has the largest brain of any invertebrate, about the size of a walnut. Octopuses and cuttlefish also have among the largest brain-to-body size ratios of all invertebrates in the ocene.
cephalopods are one of the most intelligent sea creature spices on the planet . Their intelligence and human intelligence evolved for very different reasons, so they are in many ways incomparable to each other. Scientists think human intelligence became advanced so that our ancestors could better relate to each other in the groups they lived in. Cephalopods, on the other hand, have no social interaction with each other except for mating. Their intelligence probably evolved so they could evade the predators who found their soft bodies a delightfully easy meal.
They can even solve puzzles ! Octopuses can learn how to open jars to get food from them. One of them, in an experiment, figured out how to open a childproof jar. Like I said, they are the houdinis of the ocean and they are notorious escape artists.
Each individual arm can think for itself, how crazy is that ? Researchers once did an experiment where they cut off an octopus's arm (don't worry - the arm will grow back). The arm crawled on its own, grabbed a piece of food, and passed it to where the mouth would be if the arm was still attached to the body. They are even smart enough that they will sometimes use stones to camouflage the entrance to their dens.
Octopuses are one of the most fascinating creatures in today's time, they are smart, cunning and dangerous and should definitely be more observed and researched, because even with what we know today, there are still things that remain a mystery to us.
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