Its the start of 2017 and with so many people attempting to change at this time of year, why not study the master colour changer of the sea. Octopuses are incredibly gifted at colour change, I could never fully grasp all the amazing colours that they can be but below is a short video at my ‘artistic attempt’ to capture it.

This video however, just shows the colour change, octopuses in real life go a step further and can also change the texture of their skin. Their skin can get rough, tiny spikes can raise off there skin (especially if they are angry) and this combined with colour change means they can just about blend in with anything! Although I can’t remember seeing an octopus in the wild and I usually I like to keep this site to species I have seen. But theres no guarantee that I haven’t ‘seen’ one of these amazing beasts I just don’t know that I have?

Common octopuses can change colour because they have three very amazing cells types – Chromatophores, Iridophores and Leucophores. In a very simple description these three types of cells work by having a sac of pigment in the centre that is stretched or retracted to increase the brightness of the colour. Each cell has a different colour type, i.e. red, green, blue. Iridophores have a bit of an extra layer in that they are reflective and create iridescent colours. Leucophores are also able to mimic surrounding colours so they are able to blend in with their backgrounds.

The Common Octopus has a wide habitat range around the planet from tropics to the sub-tropics. Just up a bit from Pembroke in the UK is about as high a range that this octopus can be found in the UK. They live in shallow rocky areas usually no more than 50m deep but in other places in the world they can live a bit deeper. It has a mantle (the ‘head’) of 20-30cm but an arm span of 1m! These octopuses are also no where near the biggest species you can get.

With all my other posts I usually way over personify the species, but with the octopus there is no need because they are unbelievably smart in their own right. This species has no back bone, its able to move through tiny spaces it is only limited by the hard beak it feeds from. It can blend in better than a chameleon ever could, its a voracious predator of shellfish and crustaceans and successfully lives in harsh underwater environments. But most scarily out of all these very un-human traits, is how intelligent they can be.  Octopuses intelligence has led to them famously being difficult to keep in aquariums as they  have been famously known to escape tanks easily. The recent pixar film Finding Dory (although maybe a little over estimating Hank the Octopuses abilities) isn’t far wrong. Octopus have escaped tanks, and then escaped buildings! They can open complex puzzles, have different personalities and have eyes that look like they know more than you! This intelligence just goes and breaks all of humans nice conformed boundaries of how only humans and other similar vertebrates only have intelligence.  So there really is no need for me to personify these creatures, plus I honestly feel like I could meet one one day and it would know to judge me for for doing so!

But sadly the one thing octopuses (and most cephalopods) fail at is living. They are the epitome of the phrase  ‘live fast die young’. Common octopuses only live around 12 months, they will breed once, producing hundreds to thousands eggs about the size of rice grains that will then hatch to baby octopus. Once the male has mated he will go off and die, and after the mother has laid the eggs she too will die. There is little explanation why mating causes them to die so early when so many other species have adapted to be able to live at least a few breeding cycles. Maybe the octopus knows, they are probably smarter than us anyway….

If you enjoyed reading about the ever changing common octopus, check out my other posts! To keep up to date with the site follow me on twitter and Instagram. As always comment improvements or tweet me!