Why octopus are awesome

Subscriber Account active since. Octopuses are some of the most alien-looking creatures on the planet. With eight arms, over 1, suckers, and three hearts, they are unlike any other animal you could ever hope to meet. What's more, they're smart — really smart.

To better acquaint you with this creature of the sea, we've compiled 10 of the most mind-blowing facts that we learned while reading Katherine Harmon Courage book, " Octopus! Some species drop dead after just six months. Man-made suction cups pale in comparison to natural ones that cover the undersides of octopus arms. A common octopus has about suckers on each limb, and a particularly large sucker can hold up to 35 lbs. The suckers are also extremely sensitive; they can pick up subtle chemical signals and move individually, even folding in half in a pinching gesture.

True, humans are prone to projecting their own qualities on the rest of the animal world. But anecdotes from aquariums and biology labs suggest octopuses are very curious and need stimulation. They might even engage in what humans would call "play. For these reasons, or perhaps others, the ancestors of octopuses lost their shells entirely, while the ancestors of squid and cuttlefish internalized theirs.

The white, brittle slabs that people feed pet birds are cuttlebones, the internalized shells of cuttlefish. Unencumbered by a shell, cephalopods became flexible in both body and mind, according to Amodio and his colleagues.

They could move faster, expand into new habitats, insinuate their arms into crevices in search of prey. Losing their shells also made the cephalopods exquisitely vulnerable.

Read: Blue Planet II is the greatest nature series of all time. It lives for up to 20 years, reproducing several times during its life. In a rebuttal paper , he and two colleagues argue that the evolution of intelligence takes many generations, and cephalopods would surely have been exterminated by their legion of predators if they only started that process after they had lost their protective shells.

More likely, they argue, the path to intelligence began while the shells still existed, perhaps to help early cephalopods control their jet propulsion, or process the information from their well-developed eyes and many arms. Amodio actually agrees with that. The researchers watched 52 hours of video footage to determine that aggressive octopuses intimidate their neighbors by turning black, standing tall, stretching their tentacles wide, and looming threateningly over the other. Submissive octopuses, on the other hand, turn very pale, crouch down, and flee at the first opportunity.

She graduated from Brandeis University with degrees in Creative Writing and English Literature, and her parents were shocked when her BA in English helped her get a job. In her spare time ha!

Filed to Pop sci. Cell Mentor—an online resource from Cell Press and Cell Signaling Technology—empowers early-career researchers with career insights, publishing advice, and techniques on experimental processes and procedures. Search ». Octopuses are super smart I first became aware of how cool octopuses are back in , when I was hired as a copyeditor for Current Biology.

Moral of the story: don't go poking octopuses with sticks. Octopuses are masters of disguise In the blink of an eye, octopuses can change their color, texture, and shape to blend in with their surroundings, transforming their skin to mimic algae-covered rocks or colorful coral reefs. Octopuses are sneaky In a study in Behaviour , scientists discovered a species of octopus that burrows as opposed to what many other species of octopus do, which is dig.

Octopuses: masters of classic misdirection. Octopuses aren't antisocial they just don't like you Although long thought to be solitary creatures, new studies are finding that octopuses interact far more than previously thought—though these interactions aren't always friendly. So there you have it: despite having eight arms, octopuses just aren't very cuddly.