Mollusks, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 29, 2018

Ghostly Dumbo Octopus Makes Rare Appearance in Dazzling Deep-Sea Video

The incredible video captured of the seemingly friendly, little eight-legged ghost elicited squeals of delight and wonder from the team behind the camera on the E/V Nautilus, who immediately identified the animal as a rare dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis sp.). Oh, and the world loves a dumbo, one of the team...

Oct 30, 2018

Photos: Deep-sea expedition discovers metropolis of octopuses

Exploring the deep (Image credit: Ocean Exploration Trust/NOAA)The E/V Nautilus has been working with the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to send their underwater remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs) to unexplored regions of the Davidson Seamount, about 80 miles (129 kilometers) off the coast of Monterey, California. The researchers discovered an abundance...

Nov 2, 2018

Photos: Ghostly dumbo octopus dances in the deep sea

A rare sight (Image credit: Ocean Exploration Trust/NOAA)During the Oct. 23, 2018 dive of the ROV Hercules, part of the Nautilus exploration program, a cirrate octopod of the Grimpoteuthis species swam into view. Using the scaling lasers aboard the ROV, the research team estimated the animal to be less than...

Nov 5, 2018

'Male' Octopus Hatches 10,000 Teensy Babies in Surprise Birth

Sit back, clear your mind, and let this imagery sink in: buckets and buckets and buckets full of tiny octopi. That's what Devin Dumont — curator of the UGA Marine Education Center and Aquarium in Savannah, Georgia — said he found when he showed up to work last Tuesday, according...

Mar 12, 2019

This Octopus's Dreams (Maybe) Were Written All Over Its Body

Octopuses are known for their astonishing ability to rapidly shift their skin color and texture, to hide from predators, to sneak up on prey and to communicate with each other. But what exactly is going on when octopuses change color in their sleep? Footage that recently circulated on Twitter offered...

Jul 1, 2019

Alien Life Might 'Think' More Like an Octopus Than a Human

When an octopus coils one of its flexible arms around a rock or a bit of food, it's not because the animal's brain said, Pick that up. Rather, the arm decides for itself what it's going to do next. For a person, that would be like having one's big toe...

Aug 8, 2019

A Woman Placed an Octopus on Her Face for a Photo. Then It Bit Her.

A woman's ill-advised photo attempt with an octopus recently went horribly wrong: After she draped the cephalopod on her face, the octopus dug in with its suckers and bit her on the chin, causing a painful infection that sent her to the emergency room. Jamie Bisceglia, a resident of Fox...

Jun 1, 2020

Scientists capture the world's deepest octopus on video. And it's adorable.

Explorers have captured video of the deepest-known octopus, revealing an adorably pudgy Dumbo octopus some 4.3 miles (6,957 meters) beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean swimming in what is called the hadal zone, where not even a drop of sunlight can penetrate. The dumbo octopus (genus Grimpoteuthis), with its...

Sep 25, 2020

Bright 'red glob' washes ashore in Washington. It may be a 7-armed octopus.

A mysterious, many-armed sea creature — initially described as a large red glob — lying on a rocky shore in Washington has drawn in cephalopod experts across the country, each wondering what this gelatinous animal is. The 3.5-foot-long (1 meter) beast's identity was at first elusive; was it the shallow-water...

Dec 23, 2020

Octopus punches fish in the head (just because it can)

Why do octopuses have eight arms? The better to punch fish with, new research reveals. These brainy cephalopods sometimes team up with fish to find food; hunting collaboratively like this allows them to cover more area, and it increases their chances of catching prey. However, when big blue octopuses (Octopus...

Mar 8, 2021

Octopuses can 'see' light with their arms

Octopuses can see light with their arms, even when their eyes are in the dark, researchers have found. When the arms of the octopus detect light, the eight-armed creature pulls them close to their body. Because octopuses generally have a poor sense of where their body is in space, this...

May 10, 2021

All hail 'Emperor Dumbo,' the newest species of deep-dwelling octopus

A new species of Dumbo octopus, equipped with telltale (and darling) fins on its head, has been dredged from the deep. Nicknamed the Emperor Dumbo, the adorable creature was discovered in 2016. Alexander Ziegler of Friedrich Wilhelm University in Bonn, Germany, was aboard the German survey ship R/V Sonne as...

Jul 13, 2021

Elusive glass octopus spotted in the remote Pacific Ocean (Video)

This rarely seen glass octopus bared all recently — even a view of its innards — when an underwater robot filmed it gracefully soaring through the deep waters of the Central Pacific Ocean. Marine biologists spotted the elusive glass octopus (Vitreledonella richardi) during a 34-day expedition off the remote Phoenix...

Oct 13, 2021

Cephalopods: Facts about octopus, squid, nautilus and more

Cephalopods are members of a class of marine animals that includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses. The group includes more than 800 species (and new species are still being found), according to CephBase on the Encyclopedia of Life, a database that's part of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural...

Oct 22, 2021

Baby octopuses grow hundreds of temporary organs, then lose them without a trace

Your internal organs grow and change throughout your life, but rarely do they vanish without a trace. For baby octopuses, things are not so simple. Before they are born, embryonic octopuses sprout hundreds of temporary, microscopic structures known as Kölliker's organs (KO). These tiny organs cover every surface of the...