Buzz
The octopus is a truly fascinating and enigmatic creature. Known for its daring escapes and viral moments, it’s even gained fame in popular culture, with some becoming the subject of films and wild theories.
These creatures are filled with enigmas. From bizarre mass strandings to the unique way their skin reveals dreams, there’s still so much about octopuses that scientists haven’t figured out yet.
10. They Experience Oxygen Blindness
During the day, many Pacific species take refuge in the deep to escape predators and the harsh sunlight. At night, they venture to the surface in search of food. In 2019, researchers collected larvae from creatures like octopuses, crabs, and squids to examine how oxygen levels affected their vision.
Oxygen plays a crucial role in transforming light particles into vision. As an octopus dives deeper, the environment becomes more oxygen-deprived. The study revealed that oxygen is far more essential for cephalopod vision than anyone had previously understood.
Scientists monitored the creatures in tanks, attaching tiny electrodes to their eyes and using bright lights as a visual stimulus. Over 30 minutes, the oxygen level was reduced from the normal 100 percent air saturation at the surface to just 20 percent, which is lower than the depths these creatures typically inhabit.
The results were alarming. All the cephalopods and crustaceans experienced severe vision loss, with some even going completely blind. Yet, within an hour of restoring the oxygen levels, the animals regained 60–100 percent of their vision. These findings are troubling because climate change is reducing the ocean’s oxygen levels, which could lead to a future where these species are blind and vulnerable.
9. The Farm Conflict
The demand for octopus as a delicacy is on the rise. However, capturing these cephalopods in the wild is an unpredictable and challenging task, leaving fishermen struggling to keep up with global demand. This has led seafood companies to explore the possibility of octopus farming.
Experts in both science and psychology strongly oppose octopus farming. While livestock farming has supported humanity for centuries, octopuses are a different case. These creatures would pose more challenges than benefits, as the young need live prey and adults require substantial amounts of meaty food, adding immense pressure on already overburdened fisheries.
Scientists warn that farming octopuses for human consumption could, ironically, endanger food security. These farms could lead to pollution, inbreeding, disease outbreaks, and the trauma of intelligent creatures capable of recognizing individuals and solving complex problems.
8. Male Murder
Octopuses are renowned for their extraordinary abilities, both physical and mental. However, they also have a dark side. Male octopuses, in their pursuit of love, often face the risk of being strangled and eaten by their romantic partners.
Depending on the species, male octopuses have developed various strategies to survive mating with females, who are often larger. To mate, a male must transfer sperm through a specialized arm called a hectocotylus, one of his eight arms.
Less aggressive species of octopus have shorter arms and use all of them to embrace the female before mating. In contrast, more aggressive species possess longer tentacles and reproduce at a safer distance, keeping their arms extended.
Algae octopuses have to contend with both aggressive females and larger males who guard them. Smaller males, however, have devised a clever tactic: they pretend to be females, concealing their long mating arm while snuggling up to the real female.
Other species take deception to the extreme. The argonaut and blanket octopuses amputate their mating arms inside the female and make a quick escape, leaving behind a reproductive limb and running for their lives.
7. They Can Walk On Land
It's not uncommon for an octopus to scurry across land. In fact, they've been captured on film moving between isolated pools. However, since octopuses are nocturnal, their land journeys are rarely observed.
In 2017, something unusual occurred. Dolphin watchers returning to the beach in Ceredigion, Wales, at around 10:00 PM discovered over 20 octopuses wandering across the sand.
There was something unsettling about this event. While it’s not unusual for octopuses to move between pools, seeing a large group of them on a beach seemed out of place and dangerous. Octopuses can survive briefly on land, but only for a short period of time.
The Ceredigion octopuses didn’t return to the pools or the ocean. The next day, some were found dead, while others had been rescued the night before. The cause behind the stranding is still unclear, but the most plausible explanations include illness or disorientation caused by something like a storm.
6. The World's Cutest Octopus
In 2018, researchers from Hawaii’s Kaloko-Honokoohau National Historical Park set out to monitor the nearby coral reefs. During their work, they came across a piece of floating plastic. When they picked it up, they found unexpected stowaways: a pair of tiny baby octopuses had hitched a ride on the trash.
One of them was incredibly adorable. It was about the size of a pea and posed for pictures near one of the researcher’s fingertips. After the photos were shared on social media, the baby’s freckled arms and big eyes quickly captured the hearts of many online fans.
The other baby octopus was also tiny, but it wasn’t winning any cuteness contests. Instead, it was engaged in a very unadorable activity: when the scientists found it, the tiny octopus was strangling a baby crab. Both cephalopods were released into what officials described as a 'small protected space.'
5. The Kayak Incident
In 2018, two friends set off for a kayaking adventure along the coast of New Zealand. One friend filmed the other, capturing an unexpected moment. A seal suddenly appeared beside him and tossed a large octopus directly at his face with surprising precision.
Why the octopus-struck man appeared to enjoy the incident may remain a mystery forever. (He yelled in triumph!) However, the seal’s bizarre behavior could simply have been an attempt to tenderize its meal.
Octopuses are tough prey since they fight back and their suckers remain stuck to surfaces even after death. This becomes problematic for seals trying to swallow them whole.
To loosen the grip of the suckers, seals typically rough up their prey by smashing it against rocks or tossing it in the air. It’s likely that the seal saw the floating human as a suitable surface for tenderizing its meal.
4. Paul’s Movie
During the 2010 World Cup, Paul the octopus gained worldwide fame for predicting the outcome of each match. After his passing in October of that year, a filmmaker alleged that Paul’s keepers had orchestrated a cover-up. According to the claim, Paul had actually died three months before, just before the final match.
The accusation suggested that the German aquarium had replaced the deceased octopus with an identical lookalike to deceive the public. Jiang Xiao, the filmmaker behind the documentary *Who Killed Paul the Octopus?*, directed the film and made these accusations. This was probably not the type of attention the Oberhausen Sea Life Center had expected when they agreed to collaborate with Jiang.
Jiang, who believed all octopuses appeared the same, speculated that the aquarium staff grew “nervous” and “afraid” when the film began investigating the true story behind Paul’s remarkable predictions. The aquarium found this assertion as perplexing as the idea that Paul had died months before.
Jiang refused to elaborate on why she believed the creature had been 'killed.' However, the Oberhausen Sea Life Center maintained that there was no substitute octopus. Paul passed away due to natural causes at the age of around 2.5 years, which is typical for octopuses. His remains were cremated, and visitors can see his urn, watch video tributes, and leave messages in a condolence book.
3. Skin Dreams
Octopuses sometimes display baffling behavior. In 2017, one particular incident in Colorado surpassed expectations. At the Butterfly Pavilion, a zoo dedicated to invertebrates, a Caribbean two-spot octopus showcased its remarkable ability to change colors.
Much like chameleons, these eight-armed creatures can become invisible, allowing them to evade predators, deceive prey, and even communicate with each other. In October, a zoo employee recorded a mesmerizing transformation from the two-spot octopus.
It started off white, then dark patterns began to pulse rhythmically with the creature’s breathing. Afterward, a deep rush of near-black color washed over its body before gradually fading back to white.
What made the situation particularly fascinating was that the octopus was asleep. Octopuses are known for their rapid ability to change their appearance in response to sudden shifts in their environment, leading to the possibility that the two-spot might have been experiencing a nightmare.
Researchers are actively investigating how cephalopods sleep and whether they experience dreams. If they do, it could be an entirely unique phenomenon, given that octopuses don't have brains like humans. Instead, they possess clusters of neurons within their limbs.
2. The Perfect Escape Plan
A New Zealand fisherman made a surprising discovery when he pulled up his crayfish trap and found an octopus inside. The scarred creature, roughly the size of a rugby ball, had its limbs shortened. When the fisherman brought it to the national aquarium, the staff noticed signs that the octopus had been in combat with fish, likely on the reef where it had lived.
Named Inky, the octopus was given a tank, and his charismatic nature quickly made him a popular attraction. Known for his remarkable intelligence, it wasn’t until years later that it became clear just how clever Inky truly was.
In 2016, the top of Inky’s aquarium was unintentionally left ajar. That night, when the building was unoccupied, the clever cephalopod slipped through the narrow gap. He made his way down the side and onto the floor.
After traveling across an area that stretched up to 4 meters (13 ft), Inky found a drainpipe. The 50-meter-long (164 ft) pipe led him directly back to the ocean. Though no one actually witnessed the escape, this scenario is the most plausible. With security being too tight for anyone to have taken him, it’s well-known that octopuses are master escape artists. Without bones, they can wriggle through incredibly small spaces.
1. The Space Report
In 2018, a study was released after decades of research had been conducted. Compiled by 33 authors, the study was peer-reviewed, widely cited, and published in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology.
The issue?
It was suggested that octopuses might have originated from outer space. While the researchers didn’t go as far as claiming the cephalopods arrived in spaceships, they certainly hinted at the possibility.
The researchers went all out in providing evidence for the theory that squids and octopuses had laid eggs somewhere in space. Somehow, these eggs found their way into comets, where the freezing temperatures preserved them in a state of cryopreservation.
The hypothesis continues that the comets collided with Earth hundreds of millions of years ago. The eggs endured the impact and eventually hatched. And just like that, the planet was home to intelligent cephalopods.
Although some scholars are becoming more open to the idea that Earth’s life, chemicals, and elements might have been seeded by extraterrestrial sources, more research and undeniable evidence are required before this theory can escape the realm of the far-fetched.
