Octopuses

Cephalopods may have the oldest sex chromosomes of any animal, according to a recent discovery in the octopus genome.That's a big deal given that scientists didn't know until now that these oddball creatures even had a form of sex determination written into their genes. To determine if an octopus is male or female, biologists have relied purely on observation, differentiating between which individuals lay eggs versus which produce sperm.Searching the octopus genome had shown no clear sign of a sex chromosome system.…

A dorado octopus hatchling.Photo: Schmidt Ocean InstituteA team of scientists working off the coast of Costa Rica have identified four previously unknown deep-sea octopus species in the vicinity of hydrothermal springs on the ocean floor. They also discovered two octopus nurseries affiliated with the springs, both of which belong to the newly christened dorado octopus. The researchers determined that the dorado octopus is a member of the deep-sea genus Muusoctopus.A petite octopus propels itself through the deep sea.Gif: …

Roaming around dark ocean crevices, an octopus searches for flickers of light underwater that might indicate its next meal. It looks out for small fish darting across its visual field and crabs crawling along the ocean floor. Meanwhile the octopus is wary of a shadow gliding above—perhaps it’s a sperm whale, a common predator of the octopus and its prey. Finding food and staying safe as a soft, flexible cephalopod requires a different set of visual sensitivities and skills than the ones we humans use when we’re walking…

The tiny baby octopuses—each about the size of a nickel—emerged from soft, membranous eggs, clutched in their mothers’ protective embrace. One by one the hatchlings gracefully unfurled their delicate tentacles and floated away into the abyss. This awe-inspiring scene unfolded as stunned scientists watched, via an underwater camera, from a ship on the ocean’s surface during a recent expedition. Though brooding deep-sea octopuses had previously been spotted in this area near hydrothermal vents on the Pacific Ocean seafloor…

Marine scientists appear to have found some more natural wonders of the ocean: not one, but two deep-sea octopus nurseries in the waters of Costa Rica. One of these nurseries was previously thought to be inhospitable for eggs to hatch in, while the other was undiscovered until now. The team of scientists also believe that the octopuses nursing there might be a novel species, and the area itself is teeming with other sea life.Octopuses Caught on Camera Throwing Shells at Each OtherOctopuses are generally considered to be…

A dive into the minds of sleeping octopuses has yielded further evidence that these enigmatic cephalopods experience REM sleep, or something very similar.By simultaneously studying the coloration changes and neural activity of octopuses in the Land of Nod, a team of scientists led by the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have confirmed the existence of alternating sleep states.The more active of the two states, they discovered, bears a strong resemblance to activity seen when the octopus is awake.Similar…

Octopuses are extremely intelligent creatures; so intelligent that some scientists are convinced octopuses are alien. Now, though, these intriguing creatures have done something surprising; they’ve built entire octopus cities off the coast of Eastern Australia. These cities aren’t just astounding because of their creation, but also because of how they change what we know about octopuses, too. For starters, it was always believed that these tentacled creatures were loners, with jokes about whether they would…

Everything about the octopus seems strange — unworldly, even, as some have suggested — compared to other life forms on Earth. Their evolutionary history is thought to go back 330 million years, far longer than mammals, and they're so alien-like, they could be considered as a potential model for how intelligent alien creatures may have very different ways of thinking from us.The octopus has a reputation as a very intelligent animal, able to solve puzzles, open jars and use tools. They are masters of camouflage and…

Octopuses have found an incredible way to protect the more delicate features of their nervous system against radically changing temperatures.When conditions fluctuate, they can rapidly recode key proteins in their nerve cells, ensuring critical neurological activities remain functional when temperatures drop dramatically.How do they do it? By deploying a rare superpower – editing their RNA on the fly, an ability found in some species of octopuses, squids and cuttlefish.It's an unusual strategy, but it appears to be an…

Octopuses are among the smartest animals on the planet—and some of the strangest. They have about the same number of neurons as dogs, but more than half of those cells are distributed across the slippery cephalopods’ eight arms rather than contained in a central brain. As researchers report on June 8 in Cell, the neural anomalies only get more bizarre from there. Octopuses, they found, have the ability to recode their neurons in response to temperature shifts so those cells produce different proteins. Like people…