Originally published at: Watch this mesmerizing underwater video of a beautiful blanket octopus | Boing Boing
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I came across these amazing creatures last year!
In addition to the crazy size difference, some more fun facts:
The male detaches a special arm-like thing full of sperm and gives it to the female for safe keeping. When she’s ready, she lays her eggs and sprinkles them with the sperm.
Also, they’re immune to the sting of the Portuguese Man of War jellyfish, so they’ll detach the toxic tentacles from same and brandish them as weapons against foes! What a glorious planet.
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so pretty, so unusual. i swear, aliens live among us, and they are cephalopods.
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The “Blanket” octopus?! That’s insulting, not to mention fodder for wet blanket jokes. It should be the silk octopus or the shimmering octopus, or f’in anything better than “blanket.”
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As I was watching I imagined how cool it would be if giant creatures looking something like this were “swimming” around in space somehow. Who knows what forms of life might be able to live out there, light years away.
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me too. and i really wonder, assuming they are NOT aliens, what sort of evolutionary advantage do they get from being so visible in such a dangerous environment?
At the depths they operate it is pitch black. The light here is coming from the submersible.
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Blanket is used here because of the membrane between the tentacles that make the octopus look like it is a blanket. But I vote for shimmering silky blanket octopus.
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I thought I saw something where they were also known as “angel octopus” but I can’t find it again, so must be misremembering. They really do look ethereal, though.
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Blanket octopus sounds like someone threw a blanket into the water and a diver mistook it for a sea creature. You know, the same way I gasp and feel bad for the…cardboard box in the road that looked for a moment like a dead cat.
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