Octopuses shown to map their visual landscape much like humans do

An octopus devotes about 70% of its brain to vision. But until recently, scientists have only had a murky understanding of how these marine animals see their underwater world. A new University of Oregon study brings the octopus's ...

Taking a lesson in evolutionary adaptation from octopus, squid

Cephalopods such as octopus and squid evolutionarily diverged from mollusks like slugs and snails. These animals have elaborate compact nervous systems located within specialized arm appendages, which can perform a surprisingly ...

Viewpoint: Why the ethics of octopus farming are so troubling

Octopus is a popular ingredient in many cuisines, with some 420,000 metric tons of this mollusc being caught worldwide each year. The rising global popularity of octopus has been attributed to the increasingly adventurous ...

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Octopus

The octopus ( /ˈɒktəpʊs/; traditionally, plural: octopuses, see below) is a cephalopod mollusc of the order Octopoda. Octopuses have two eyes and four pairs of arms, and like other cephalopods they are bilaterally symmetric. An octopus has a hard beak, with its mouth at the center point of the arms. Octopuses have no internal or external skeleton (although some species have a vestigial remnant of a shell inside their mantle), allowing them to squeeze through tight places. Octopuses are among the most intelligent and behaviorally flexible of all invertebrates.

The octopus inhabits many diverse regions of the ocean, including coral reefs, pelagic waters, and the ocean floor. They have numerous strategies for defending themselves against predators, including the expulsion of ink, the use of camouflage and deimatic displays, their ability to jet quickly through the water, and their ability to hide. An octopus trails its eight arms behind it as it swims. All octopuses are venomous, but only one group, the blue-ringed octopuses, is known to be deadly to humans.

There are around 300 recognized octopus species, which is over one-third of the total number of known cephalopod species. The term octopus may also be used to refer only to those creatures in the genus Octopus.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA