File #029 //
Common Octopus
(Octopus Vulgaris)
Core Data
Designation: Mollusk
Habitat: Its found from the eastern Atlantic, extending from the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and the southern coast of England, to the southern coast of South Africa. It also occurs off the Azores, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, as well as the Western Atlantic.
Diet: It prefers crabs, crayfish, and bivalve mollusks are preferred, although it eats almost anything it can catch including fish.
Size: It grows up to 25cm (10in) in mantle length with arms up to 1m (3.3ft) long.
Lifecycle: Lives around 1 to 2 years. Other species of octopus can live up to 5 years.
Specialized Functions
The common octopus is one of the most intelligent of all octopus species! They are able to distinguish brightness, navigate mazes, recognize individual people, learn how to unscrew a jar or even raid lobster traps. They have also been observed keeping "gardens", in which they collect various marine plant life and algae, alongside collections of shells and rocks.
The common octopus has the ability to change, not only their skin color, but their pattern, and even texture to blend in with surrounding sand, rocks, and coral. They can match the color of almost anything but they do struggle with bright, uniform, or moving backgrounds. They also struggle with perfect color accuracy due to their color blindness.
They also have the ability to eject ink as an escape mechanism to confuse predators! More than a smokescreen, anecdotal evidence suggests it can also block advanced chemical sensors in creatures such as Moray Eels. Its ink has been used as pen and quill ink, food dye, and studies have shown that it is toxic to certain cells including tumor cells.
