Top 10 Coolest Facts About Octopuses
Octopuses are some of the most incredible and interesting sea creatures on the planet. Few people know things about these fascinating animals past the fact that they have eight tentacles and that they squirt ink, but these aren't nearly the coolest things about the animals. So, read on, and learn about the top 10 coolest facts about octopuses!
If you observe an octopus going about its daily life, one of the most interesting things you will notice is how dexterous and flexible its eight arms are. Each arm can move individually because it has its own brain. In addition to the central brain located in the head, this adds up to a total of nine brains.
The central brain controls most of the main body functions, like feeding, while the other eight brains, each located in a different arm, allow the arms to move independently. The central brain directs the other eight by giving them simple commands, and the individual arm brains handle the complex movements involved in performing tasks. It's quite an incredible and useful system.
One surprisingly unknown fact about octopuses that is truly fascinating is that, much like chameleons and some frogs, octopuses can change the pigmentation of their skin to any color they like. The science behind this involves a key type of organelle called chromatophores.
Underneath the skin of an octopus, there are tons of these cell-sized organelles that control how much light is reflected, completely changing the hue. As there are many chromatophores, octopuses can change different ones to different colors, allowing for extremely realistic camouflage. Another great aspect of this process is that octopuses can change color extremely quickly, in as little as a tenth of a second, while other animals like chameleons can take over a minute to fully change.
The octopus has one of the most fascinating circulatory systems of any animal on the planet. The most notable aspect of this system is the fact that there are not one, not two, but three hearts! This may seem strange, as nearly every other animal on the planet has only one heart, but three hearts are necessary for octopuses to stay alive.
One heart controls the circulatory system and pumps blood around the body, while the other two pump blood to the gills to gather more oxygen. The complexity of the octopus's body structure limits how much of the body the first heart can cover. Additionally, the animal needs a lot of blood around its gills, which is why each set of gills has its own heart as a blood supply.
Yes, you read it right: octopuses have beaks, much like those on birds. When looking at an octopus, you can't see the beak because it's not on the surface. The beak, resembling that of a macaw when taken out, is embedded in strong muscle tissue.
Unlike birds, which have their beaks on the surface, octopuses use this powerful beak and their drill-shaped tongue to break through the hard shells of their prey and eat them.
Octopuses are already masters of camouflage due to their incredible color-changing system. They take their hiding skills to the next level with a unique and impressive ability to change the texture of their skin. You may be familiar with papillae, the bumps on your tongue that contain taste buds and help grip food. Octopuses have papillae all over their bodies.
They can arrange muscle fibers in different patterns, changing their skin texture from flat to bumpy to spiky. Only one other creature, the cuttlefish, shares this extraordinary method.
We all know that octopuses have eight arms, or limbs, though two of the eight limbs actually serve as legs while the other six are arms. However, what many people don't know is that these arms, like the tails of lizards, will simply grow back if they are injured.
The limb will grow back in around 100 days, and unlike most other animals with regenerative limbs, the newly grown appendage will work just as well as the old one did. This regeneration is extremely important for the creature, as it requires all eight limbs to be fully functional to swim and catch prey adequately. This is why the creature has evolved to have regenerative limbs.
One peculiar thing about octopuses is that their pupils, which are the black parts in the center of their eyes, are rectangular instead of circular. This is quite practical for the animal. The rectangular shape and positioning of the pupils allow an octopus to see in virtually all directions, which is extremely useful in the ocean's unpredictable environment.
In addition to this wide field of vision, the rectangular shape is very practical for controlling how much light enters their eyes. Octopuses are not the only animals on the planet with rectangular pupils. Other exceptions include toads, goats, and sheep, all of which have evolved to have this special feature to survive in their environments.
When thinking of an octopus, the first thing that comes to mind is definitely not a fast swimmer. The eight legs and wonky head don't seem ideal for swimming, but octopuses are much faster than we give them credit for.
Using an interesting swimming method of splaying out their eight legs to make a parachute shape, then pushing them back into a straight shape to get propelled backward, octopuses can swim at 40 kilometers an hour, and occasionally even faster. To put it into perspective, most humans can't swim over 2 kilometers an hour. The fastest speed ever recorded by a human was 9.66 km/h by Michael Phelps, which is still not even a quarter of the speed that these incredible swimmers can achieve.
One thing that octopuses have grown famous for is how dedicated the mothers are. Throughout the entire period from when the eggs are laid to when they hatch, the mother will be watching and protecting the eggs, not even leaving them to eat or sleep. This is why most octopus mothers end up dying from lack of food.
The truly impressive thing about the hatching process is not the dedication of the mother, but the sheer quantity of eggs involved. In many cases, octopuses have been recorded laying over 200 thousand eggs at once, a shocking number for such a large animal. Often, only a few of the eggs will survive, occasionally only one or two or even none. However, there have been times when thousands of octopus babies have been recorded hatching at once.
When you think of blood, the color red likely comes to mind. Nearly all mammals, reptiles, fish, birds, and amphibians have red-colored blood, which is why it was quite intriguing to scientists when they discovered that octopuses do not have red blood, but a dark shade of blue instead.
It's quite simple why octopuses and a few other blue-blooded animals like squid, shrimp, snails, crabs, and most spiders have blue blood instead of the typical red. Instead of the iron inside the protein that carries oxygen around our bodies, octopuses have copper, which creates a drastically different color. This also means that octopus blood has a completely different taste than human blood, as you would be tasting copper instead of iron.