Octopi

Octopus in Baja California

Today I'm thinking about Octopi. Now, Cephalopods (squid, Octopus and cuttlefish) may not be my favorite undersea creature, (that would be whales) but they certainly are very cool. I watched this video and instantly thought back to my first trip to Baja California, to a day when instead of whale watching, we went tide pooling. We were able to see all kinds of things including shells bigger than my face, jawfish and, of course, Octopi. It took a lot of flipping over shells and peering behind rocks, but sure enough, there was an octopus, orange with blue painted eyes that seemed to be staring at me. Wait- if he was staring at me, how was he seeing where he was going? I looked at him with intense curiosity, and saw two more, less obvious eyes. What? A four-eyed octopus? Unheard of. But, then - What was I seeing? I asked the guide. She told me that the big blue eyes I saw staring at me were actually not eyes, but it's skin. They were meant to scare away the predators, the same way they had scared me. In this video with Marine Biologist Roger Hanlon, he is talking about octopus camouflage. Did you know that Octopi use texture more than sight to camouflage? I didn't - until i watched this video! Also, camouflage is used to hide from predators, but did you know that it can also help the animal sneak up on prey, as well as protect the animal from things like ultraviolet radiation? Roger Hanlon is pretty interesting. Check out his website here. 

What is your favorite Marine animal? What did you learn from the video?