![]() ![]() A hungry octopus may perform any of a number of steps to open a clamshell. Once the creatures get larger, however, they find clamshells are more interesting because they tend to include a tasty clam. They can actually crawl inside and use their suckers to pull the shell closed. They'll usually find a cave or a formation in the rocks that allows them to remain secluded, but smaller octopi may hide inside a clamshell. So if it turns on its side or even upside down, the gaze of the eyes remain fixed in relation to the horizon. What's even more unusual is that the octopus' eyes remain at the same orientation regardless of the creature's position. Oddly, an octopus' eyes have horizontal pupils (in direct contrast to felines, whose eyes have vertical pupils). An octopus sees the same thing upside down as right-side up. She may hold them for days or weeks before she feels ready to do so. When a male fertilizes a female's eggs, she doesn't necessarily lay them right away. In some species, the arm is visibly different since it has fewer suckers than the other seven arms. At the tip of this "hectocotylus" arm is the ligula, which serves as its reproductive organ. One arm of a male octopus is, well, special. In some cases, female octopi have more suckers than the men, but only because of what "makes the male the male." Read on. And while some species grow a standard number of suckers on each arm by the time they become adults, the number of suckers on the arms of other species may vary. Some species have more suckers than others. An octopus' suckers are arranged in two rows down each arm And third, once dispersed, the ink clouds the water to help give the octopus time to escape. Secondly, it may interfere with the predator's sense of smell or sight. This not only propels the animal away from the danger, but also forces out a trail of "ink." This ink, which may be red, brown, or black, is made of melanin, the same dark pigment that colors human skin and hair. The ink's effects are three-fold: First, the initial "jet" of ink visually distracts, confuses, and perhaps even frightens the predator. When frightened, an octopus often "swallows" water with its body and ejects it forcefully. Most - but not all - octopus species come equipped with an "ink sac" that spews out a stream of dark liquid into the water when the creature is threatened. An octopus' "ink" serves three important purposes. Weather and turbulent water get many of them, while others are swallowed up along with plankton by larger sea creatures. ![]() The vast majority of them die during this period. In most species, the eggs hatch, and the larval octopi swim for the surface where they may remain for a month or more. The transparent eggs are protected by the mother in the octopus' lair for several weeks. over its one-to-two-week fertile period. A female octopus, known as a hen, may lay 100 thousand eggs. ![]()
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