Octopus
by
Jonathan Ichikawa/
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Octopuses are soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusks belonging to the order Octopoda.
Octopus have two eyes and a beaked mouth in the middle of their eight limbs.
With their soft and malleable bodies, they can quickly change their shape,
allowing
them to squeeze through narrow spaces and escape predators!
Day Octopus
By
Doug Finney/
CC BY-NC 2.0
Octopuses move mainly by crawling slowly and swimming in a head-first position.
The faster way of moving for an octopus is backward swimming, also known as jet propulsion.
When crawling along the ocean floor, an octopus will extend its arms forward,
adhere its suckers to the rocky surface, and propel itself forward.
Octopuses have short lifespans, with some species' lifespans completed in only six months.
The lifespan of an octopus is limited by its reproductive cycle, with the exception of
the larger Pacific striped octopus,
which can reproduce numerous times over its two-year lifespan.
In the last stage of an octopus's life, an octopus forms lesions,
quickly weakens, does not feed
and is unable to defend themselves leaving them vunerable.
This last stage is called Senescence,
it is the the breakdown of cellular function without repair or replacement.
The Senescence timeline for Female and Male Octopus differs:
Oktopus opening a container with screw cap
By
Matthias Kabel /
CC BY 2.5
Octopuses demonstrate high intelligence and, through various experiments including maze and
problem-solving,
show evidence that they're capable of storing short and long-term information.
Octopuses have also been observed
to engage in behavior that may indicate sentience, such as:
Octopus
, Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, 27 Jan. 2025,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus Accessed 30 Jan. 2025.
Octopus
by
Jonathan Ichikawa/
CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Oktopus opening a container with screw cap
By
Matthias Kabel /
CC BY 2.5
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