Octopuses

[LittleLebowski]

I had no idea about their camouflage capabilities in that they shift their skin shape to mimic their surroundings. Alien. I also just found out about the guy raising fish in aquariums that kept on losing fish from one aquarium that had no predators in it. Apparently, an octopus from an aquarium next to the one losing fish would sneak out at night, into the other aquarium, kill and eat a fish, and then sneak back into its own aquarium. Good thing they don't live that long, I guess (for humanity:D).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmDTtkZlMwM


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-LTWFnGmeg

[RJ]

I've been scuba diving for 25+ years, in warm waters of the US, Egypt, and Caribbean. I've seen exactly 1 octopus in that entire time.

They are really hard to locate underwater.

[Dagga Boy]

They have one at Sea World in San Diego that would regularly climb out of his tank at night and go on a killing spree in the other tanks......needless to say, I really like Octopuses.

Oh yea...they are also yummy...:cool:

[LOKNLOD]

The good Lord certainly has quite an imagination when it comes to crazy critters. Octopuses are about tops on the wow scale.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

I just read a mystery by Chelsea Cain where a serial killer takes out his victims by throwing poisonous Octopuses at them. Cain writes weird books about a cop entangled with a beautiful psychopath who had captured and tortured him.

Yummy - Greek grilled octopus, Mexican preparations and at the sushi bar - all available near my house. The Korean restaurant does an awesome spicy squid dish.

[OnionsAndDragons]

Octopi are freaking amazing!

Some of natures most effective predators. And, as nyeti points out, incredibly delicious. What more can you ask for?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Maple Syrup Actual]

There are a (relative) lot of Giant Pacific Octopus in the waters here. A friend of mine used to hold the world size record for octopus wrestling and catching, and he lost the record to a friend of his. They used to free dive for them, which sounds beyond dangerous to me. They'd sell them to a local aquarium after they were weighed for trophy purposes.

If I recall correctly, their biggest catches were around a hundred and fifty pounds. Man, that'd be a strong octopus. I've never seen one in the wild myself but then I've only ever been on top of the water for any length of time. Interesting animals, though.

[Luke]

What part of the world are you in? ^^^

[SeriousStudent]

Mmmm..... panko bread crumbs and hot peanut oil. That's where I really like to see them change shape.

[LOKNLOD]

What part of the world are you in? ^^^

His post certainly proves the accuracy of his listed location. :p

[Luke]

His post certainly proves the accuracy of his listed location. :p

Lol what I was trying to achieve is "hey where do you live? I like octopus". But because this is the Internet and I'm not supposed to ask those questions I asked a vague one hoping for a better response. California? Oregon? Washington? Mexico? Hawaii? I'd have to google Pacific Ocean to find more Places lol

[NickA]

A friend of mine used to hold the world size record for octopus wrestling and catching

My "manly as f**k" and "Dammit Canada" scales have just been totally recalibrated. Well done.

[Jay Cunningham]

http://animal.memozee.com/ArchOLD-3/1112777261.jpg


Mr. Cuttlefish remains unimpressed.

[RevolverRob]

The bulk of the work on octopus camouflage is being conducted by a research team at the Marine Biology Lab in Woods Hole, Mass. The PI for that lab came to Chicago this past winter and gave a great talk about the lab's work and what, how, and why they are doing it and how such features may have evolved. There are some really funky things going on, in our molluscan friends, but its actually a surprisingly simple biological system. The hardest part is the sensor system, which they have managed to trick over and over again to determine the limits and how it works. The only thing weirder than seeing an octopus come from someplace you aren't expecting, is seeing a lab experiment where the octopus is trying to mimic five different surfaces, simultaneously, it's cartoonish and hilarious.

-Rob

[Dagga Boy]

Cuttlefish...the Honey badger of the sea.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

What part of the world are you in? ^^^

West coast of Canada. I live in the city of Vancouver but I have a place on an island just off the coast that I spend a lot of time at.

http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a509/geordiepickard/TPI/2015-05-09%2011.27.07_zpsfykkdvri.jpg

That's my boat out there, second from the left.

From the back deck you can JUST see the golden light bouncing off the water through the trees.

http://i.imgur.com/6hv1JY5l.jpg

It's octopus country, all right. Rocky, cold water, fishy, and fairly remote. We're only there part time, of course. But very octopus-friendly conditions. Little harder on the boats and humans at times.

http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a509/geordiepickard/TPI/2015-05-09%2014.39.15_zpssqu6uv4b.jpg

This, for instance, is on a dead-calm day. That's 10-knot tidal current.

http://i.imgur.com/wanVPwel.jpg


The whole story of the place is hidden away at TPI, just in case I ever have to shove somebody off the boat and want the description of the place to be non-searchable. It's about a 15 or 20 mile ocean crossing to get to the island from the city I live in. Not far but the water is often rough, and the islands in that area are pretty much all off-grid so it's a limited audience.

Pretty nice spot though.

[Luke]

That's awesome!!!

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Thanks - we really like it, of course. It's extremely quiet as you can imagine; the busiest weekend of the year sees maybe fifty people on the island, which is about a mile long. There are no docks or piers anywhere, which significantly reduces traffic. A lot of the time on our back deck, all you can hear are different types of migratory birds, often mixed in with sizzling food on the charcoal grill.

One thing that I think is really interesting about the island is that since it's remote and very sparsely populated, most of the land is in the exact same state it's been in pretty much since the last ice age. There are no roads, just paths, and no cats or other non-indigenous predators, so it's effectively a tiny wildlife preserve and a stopover for all kinds of birds heading to nesting grounds. Depending on the month or even week, you might be surrounded by blackbirds, hummingbirds, different kinds of finches...all sorts of little animals.

Plus the waters are very productive as cold coastal waters tend to be, so you can crab or fish from the boat or the shore, or just walk out at low tide and pick oysters and throw them on the fire when you get back to the cabin.

Although to be honest...we usually just get lazy and take thick ribeyes over and grill them up on the charcoal.

Yes, life is very hard here.

[Surf]

We eat octopus almost once per week as it is a staple here. We call it by the Japanese name Tako. I still freedive and like to get octopus however my area is greatly fished compared to when I was a kid, so you have to go to more remote areas and/or deeper waters. Our market price is around $8-$10 per pound in stores. Prepared tako poke can run $12 per pound, which is the way it is most commonly sold and can be found that way in most supermarkets.

This is common in most grocery stores / supermarkets.

http://s3-media1.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/le-AlCw0XdUix1Stigjncw/o.jpg

Misanthropist -

I spent most of the year growing up in the PNW and spent a ton of time around the sound and the San Juans fishing, crabbing, clamming and we did take octopus. The pacific coldwater octopus can be monsters. Great looking set-up you have there. I do miss fishing / hunting that entire area and the outdoors there in general. I don't however miss the rain. ;)

[Maple Syrup Actual]

If I showed my wife that picture we'd be moving to wherever that is.

The rain is the single biggest downside to the region (although the exorbitant real estate prices are pretty miserable also).

Although the island group we're in is in the rain shadow of the Vancouver Island mountains, so we have this strange block of mediterranean climate which is kind of nice...except when it didn't rain on our island from February until September, and you were afraid to walk on carpet or run your fingers through your hair too fast, because dried leaves and arbutus bark were skittering everywhere and the whole place would have gone up.

On the other hand...


https://youtu.be/ddyUODpEmOE

...it's pretty relaxing.

[Chance]

An octopus can untie a knot, and beat the crap out of a shark, at the same time.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaOFcsHA6kY

Nature is terrifying.

[LittleLebowski]

Cuttlefish...the Honey badger of the sea.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/mantis_shrimp

There's a lot of videos of the mantis shrimp on YouTube destroying crabs.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

Here's a particularly good one, which is full of true facts about the mantis shrimp:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5FEj9U-CJM

[Smaug]

https://youtu.be/Q36_8s5z6S8

I've always been a science geek and octopuses, and marine biology in general, are one of my favourite subjects.
Also, if you think other cephalopods are scary, check out the Humboldt squid;


https://youtu.be/9Fkl312lldQ