Obsessive About Octopuses

Obsessive About Octopuses — page 1 — A Māori octopus hanging out in a reef

Obsessive About Octopuses — page 2 — CONTENTS What Are Octopuses By Design 6 8 10 Get a Move On 12 14 16 18 Dress for Success All an Act Self-Defence Making a Meal of Things 20 Smarter than the Average 22 24 26 28 Little and Large To Scale Born This Way And the Award Goes To 30 Weird and Wonderful 32 34 36 Octopus Mythology Conservation Index

Obsessive About Octopuses — page 3 — WHAT ARE OCTOPUSES Octopuses belong to the cephalopod animal family which includes squid cuttlefish and nautiluses Cephalopods are closely related to molluscs such as slugs and snails They have soft bodies with little to no skeletons large heads and muscular limbs known as either arms or tentacles Unlike other cephalopods octopuses only have arms and almost always eight of them In fact their name comes from the ancient Greek for eight-foot Other cephalopods have a mixture of both arms and tentacles Arms have suckers all along their underside while tentacles only have suckers at the end Cuttlefish usually have eight arms and two tentacles Nautiluses have around 90 tentacles and live in a shell This common Sydney octopus has eight arms Squid usually have eight arms and two tentacles Home Sweet Home There are approximately 300 species of octopus They live in every ocean and are found everywhere from coral reefs tide pools seagrass beds and kelp forests to the open ocean and the deep sea nearly three miles below the surface The individuals of most species generally live alone only coming together to produce offspring 66

Obsessive About Octopuses — page 4 — Nom Nom All octopuses are carnivores which means they only eat meat They prey on a wide variety of sea creatures including fish lobsters clams brittle stars sharks shrimp sea snails bristle worms crabs and sometimes smaller octopuses The varied diet of octopuses Uncharted Waters Through new technology we are learning more and more about these bizarre beings and the world they inhabit Now we’ve had our many-armed introductions let’s chart a course to these curious cephalopods and get Obsessive About Octopuses 7

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