Tuesday 5 June 2012

Mimic Octopus

I love this creature. Look at it, this is the pinnacle of behavioural evolution, I mean think about it- It can change it's shape and colour and, whilst that in itself is unremarkable for an octopus, it changes shape and colour and behaviour specifically to mimic certain species. I have also seen videos and pictures of it mimicking jellyfish and mantis shrimp (!), and in the video it shows it mimicking a poisonous sole. How does it know that that particular sole is toxic? Enough said...

(p.s. In the video it shows an octopus mimicking something that supposedly neither the commentator or the marine biologist could figure out what it was doing. This kind of worries me. It is clearly mimicking a frog fish. These fish have two fins which they use for locomotion when on the sea bed, and it looks as if it is "walking". Granted, the below video doesn't show the aspect of the animal well, but it is the best I could find at short notice. See you later.

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