Octopus Mystery Solved: Mating Rituals in Thermal Springs Revealed
MBARI’s advanced technology offers new insight into the “Octopus Garden” off Central California, the largest aggregation of octopus on Earth. In 2018, researchers from NOAA’s…
Octopus News
The octopus is a highly intelligent and adaptable cephalopod mollusk found in diverse marine environments around the world. Known for their distinct bulbous heads, large eyes, and eight flexible arms lined with suction cups, octopuses are skilled predators capable of using a variety of strategies to catch prey, including camouflage, jet propulsion, and the use of tools. They have an exceptional ability to blend into their surroundings thanks to specialized skin cells called chromatophores, which allow them to change color and texture in an instant. Octopuses have a complex nervous system, with neurons distributed across their arms, allowing them to sense and interact with their environment independently of their brain. These creatures are also known for their remarkable escape abilities, using problem-solving skills and physical prowess to evade predators. Octopuses have a relatively short lifespan, with some species living as little as six months, while others may live up to a few years. Their unique biology and behavior continue to be subjects of fascination and study in the scientific community, shedding light on the evolution of intelligence and consciousness in animals.
Active Sleep in Octopuses: Surprising Parallels to Human REM Sleep
Like humans, octopuses transition between two sleep stages – a quiet stage and an active stage that resembles REM sleep in mammals. But could this…
Breakthrough in Recording Brain Waves From Freely Moving Octopuses
Scientists have figured out how to capture brain activity in octopuses that are awake and moving – a breakthrough step in understanding how the brain…
New Research Could Link Evolution of Complex Life to Genetic “Dark Matter”
New research suggests that microRNAs play a crucial role in the advanced development of the brain, including in humans. Octopuses have fascinated scientists and the…
Harvard Scientists Reveal How Squid and Octopus Get Their Big Brains
Cephalopods were found to have similar brain development to vertebrates in a new study. Cephalopods, which include octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, exhibit impressive behaviors such…
Totally Unexpected: Scientists Discover “An Entirely New Way of Designing a Nervous System”
Octopuses are not like humans – they are invertebrates with eight arms and are more closely related to clams and snails. Despite this, they have…
Highly Intelligent: What Octopus and Human Brains Have in Common
Cephalopods like octopuses, squids, and cuttlefish are highly intelligent animals with complex nervous systems. A team of researchers has now shown that their evolution is…
Strange Shell-Like Egg Case and the Secrets of Octopus Evolution
New research indicates that a type of octopus appears to have evolved independently to develop something resembling a shell, despite having lost the genetic code…
Gruesome Octopus Death Spiral: Bizarre Self-Mutilation in Mothers Linked to Cholesterol
Changes in cholesterol production lead to a tragic octopus death spiral. New research finds remarkable parallels in steroid hormone biology across cephalopods, mice, and humans…
Wonderfully Weird Creatures: Squid and Octopus Genomes Reveal How Cephalopods’ Unique Traits Evolved
Squid, octopus, and cuttlefish – even to scientists who study them – are wonderfully weird creatures. Known as the soft-bodied or coleoid cephalopods, they have…
Scientists Succeed in Culturing the Pygmy Zebra Octopus – The Size of a Grain of Rice When They Hatch
For generations, scientists have relied on a handful of organisms to study the fundamentals of biology. The usual suspects—fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice, among others—all…
Octopuses Have Two Major Alternating Sleep States – And May Even Experience Dreams
Octopuses are known to sleep and to change color while they do it. Now, a study published on March 25, 2021, in the journal iScience…
Scientists Cracked the Case of Why Octopuses of the Same Species Can Look Totally Different
Deep beneath the ocean’s surface, surprisingly cute warty pink octopuses creep along the seafloor. But not all these octopuses look alike. While we humans love…
Octopuses Beat the Frigid Waters of the Antarctic by Rewriting Their RNA
Octopuses have found a novel way of beating the frigid temperatures of the Antarctic waters by using RNA editing to customize crucial nervous system proteins,…