Octopuses and Kindles might have more in common than you think. It’s true that you can’t read a Jules Verne novel off an octopus.

And a Kindle can’t camouflage itself against a brightly colored, textured coral reef. But the two both depend on using ambient light to generate their “display,” and both can change their appearance with incredible rapidity.

This concept was first described to me by Rich Baraniuk, a signal processing research at Rice University in Houston last fall.

He drew the helpful contrast between the cephalopod ability to use only diffuse underwater light to make the camouflage coloring come alive, whereas, our most popular display technology—computer monitors, TVs, iPhones, tablets—rely on energy-intensive light-generating displays.

So, in many ways, the cephalopods have us beat, he said. Even the Kindle is hardly as nuanced or adaptive as an octopus going into full, disappearing camo mode (thankfully—I have a hard enough time keeping track of mine as it is).

Now, a team of researchers is taking a closer look at these two disparate approaches to figure out what we can learn from these impressive animals. A review paper on the topic was published online in September in The Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

“Only in the past decade has humanity begun to master adaptive coloration for its own purposes, primarily in the form of reflective electronic paper (e-paper) devices such as the Amazon Kindle,” wrote the paper’s authors, led by Eric Kreit, of the University of Cincinnati’s School of Electronic and Computing Systems. Despite all of the extensive research and development that has gone into these products, “e-paper still lags behind biological systems,” Kreit and his colleagues added. (Perhaps we shouldn’t feel too bad, as they pointed out, because these animals have had “more than a 100 million year head start.”)

Octopuses get most of their coloration from tiny chromatophores, which are pigment-filled sacs in the skin that can expand or contract with a push or pull of muscles. Their displays’ nuances, however, come from irridophores and leucophores. Irridophores are reflective patches that can also change thickness to reflect different colors. And leucophores are more static components that use proteins to reflect white light, helping to provide light and vibrancy to the rest of the display. With this complex orchestration, they are able to change color camouflage in less than a second—all without the benefit of liquid crystal displays or any other light-producing abilities.

“Cephalopod skin is exquisitely beautiful and radiant and can be changed in milliseconds, all without generating any intrinsic light from within the skin,” Roger Hanlon, a biologist at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory and co-author of the paper, said in a prepared statement. “There are elegant solutions from biology waiting to be translated to our consumer and industrial world,” he noted.

It doesn’t appear that we have come very close so far. Compared with an octopus’s display, a gray-scale Kindle might seem relatively simple (it relies on electric charges to attract or repel the e-ink to various pixels). But, for us, this reflective-based display is an impressive step forward from our other, light-emitting devices. To rely on reflected light means that the medium must be highly efficient at zapping photons back out, rather than absorbing them. “Animal pigments and structurally colored reflectors are very efficient at using available light,” the researchers noted. Even in very low-light underwater conditions, an octopus can put on a convincing camouflage display. And the researchers hope that we can learn more about it from them. “It is imperative to study biology closely to help direct the development of technology,” Kreit and his co-authors noted.

Cutting-edge products that take advantage of these lessons are already underway. Engineers are hard at work developing full-color passive displays. One prototype being developed by Hewlett-Packard can approach the quality of color newsprint, the researchers reported. Cephalopods have more gradients in many colors (other hues, less relevant to their underwater environment, such as grays, are less developed in their palates).

Cephalopods generally lack the ability to go as dark black as many of our technologies (which can reflect less than 5 to 10 percent of the ambient light). But as the researchers pointed out, “this comparison may be unfair as most cephalopods do not require adaptation to a pitch black background.” Many of those octopuses that live in the deep sea, below where sunlight can penetrate actually have lost their color-changing abilities altogether and are a pale white since other organisms have little to no light to be able to see them by.

The octopus is known for being super-flexible, yet our displays are, so far, frustratingly firm. Octopuses can also change the texture of their skin, making it blend in with their environment, whether that is a smooth rock or a ripply sprig of kelp. Our display technology is only beginning to explore this realm, one appealing application being a textured keyboard. “Studying these systems will certainly yield new ideas about how to engineer synthetic systems,” the researchers noted.

Octopuses and other cephalopods also have an elegant and relatively mysterious near-instantaneous integration of their skin display with their visual systems—a connection both biologists and engineers are trying to parse.

“Humanity has never developed anything as complex nor as sophisticated as the biology and physics of cephalopod skin,” the authors noted. Or at least, not yet.

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The diminutive blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena lunulata) looks like a sweet, possibly even fantastical creature.

Often measuring less than 20 centimeters long and covered with dozens of bright blue rings, it spends most of its time hiding out in shells or rocks near the beach.

But don’t be fooled — this little cephalopod is trouble. One small nip from its beak can inject enough powerful neurotoxin to kill an adult human in minutes.

This venomous octopus, however, does not bite without warning first: It makes its roughly 60 blue rings that cover its arms and body glow especially bright. Although we humans might not always understand what the octopus is trying to tell us, its message is probably crystal clear to other marine animals.

Octopuses — and their cephalopod cousins squid and cuttlefish — are renowned for their quick color-changing abilities. A common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) can assume a full warning display, changing its color, skin texture and posture, in roughly two seconds. That might sound fast enough to get the point across, but predators can sneak up quickly in the oceans, so rapid communication is key. The blue-ringed octopus, on the other hand, can flash its full bright-blue warning display in less than a third of a second. How does it do it?

Lydia Mäthger, a biologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, and her colleagues set out to answer the intriguing question. To do so, they enlisted six adult H. lunulata octopuses and filmed them at super-slow speeds.

The octopus generally relies on three structures in its skin to create its elaborate displays. Chromatophores are pigment-filled sacs that are controlled by surrounding muscles. Flexing and contracting these muscles can expand or shrink the sacs, changing the overall appearance in a complicated choreography of color droplets. Beneath  these are iridophores, which are firmer, iridescent sheets whose color is controlled by a shifting in the arrangement of proteins and cytoplasm to reflect different wavelengths of light or UV waves. And finally, leucophores are more passive, white reflectors that add luminosity and contrast to the overall display. The chromatophore sacs that contribute to color displays can start to change in a matter of milliseconds, but standard iridophores, which rely on physiological changes to shift color or luminosity, can take seconds or even minutes.

The researchers found that this little octopus has developed iridophores that are un-obscured by chromatophores. These rings of iridophores are lodged in pockets of muscular skin, which can quickly relax or contract, exposing more or less of the iridescent structures, respectively.

To create an even more impressive — and clear — warning signal, the chromatophores surrounding the blue rings turn a dark brown, and those on the rest of the body turn paler, creating high contrast with the glowing blue rings. The findings are in the November issue of The Journal of Experimental Biology.

Why did the animal pick blue as the hue of death? As Mäthger and her colleagues noted in their paper, the blue-green part of the spectrum is seen by most potential predators, such as fish, whales, seals, other cephalopods and even birds. Furthermore, they noted, “the blue-green part of the visible spectrum is the most prominent ambient underwater light field,” so these hues will travel well and “pop.”

The researchers found that unlike other animals that have iridophores, these octopuses don’t use chemical signals to alter their color. “A fast, conspicuous display under muscular control is an advantage to predators, who are warned before attacking a venomous creature, and of course to the octopus itself, as it avoids being eaten,” Mäthger told The Journal of Experimental Biology.

“This signaling display method has never been seen before,” Mäthger said. The researchers found this tactic to be at work in two of the known three or four blue-ringed octopus species. Others have yet to be tested.

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Whew, I can’t believe we’ve only been out here for two days!

The Shelf and Midwater teams have combined to form the “Zonation Zombies”.

Zonation, because we all study the way that animals form layers in the ocean based on depth and environmental variables such as oxygen and temperature.

Zombies, because, well, we work a lot in the middle of the night! The Zonation Zombies have been very busy — we have attempted 4 bottom trawls and one ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) dive.

My shipmate, Kirk Sato, is collecting sea urchins for a project to study how they build their nests (aka “shells”) under ocean acidification conditions.

The predicted decline in ocean pH is expected to affect the ability of calcifying animals, like sea urchins, to build and keep their shells. Well, he certainly isn’t having trouble finding specimens (see pictures)!

I was knee-deep in these crunchy spiky creatures from the seafloor, and it took three hours to sort just one haul!

Three of four tows went off without a hitch, but our catch was so heavy on a forth it fell back in while we pulled it out of the ocean. We were extremely bummed to watch this valuable data wash back into the sea.

It’s an unfortunate but inevitable part of fieldwork that things sometimes just don’t go as planned. Hopefully we will find some time later in the research cruise to return to the site and repeat the trawl.

Some other cool things that we found in the bottom trawl include: octopi (one pictured below), a snailfish (pictured below), lots of flatfish of various species (see my first post for a picture), mud owl worms (pictured), and starfish. We had a lot of fun identifying and sorting the animals.

The animals have now been preserved for several different studies that will be carried out back on land. We have a few more bottom trawls on the schedule before the trip is over, and look forward to collecting more awesome animals.

Both yesterday and today, we deployed a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV, see here for a description of our science goals using the ROV) to look at these animals on the seafloor.

We get a lot of information from seeing the animals in their natural habitat, like how they are distributed — Do they clump together?

Do they spread out?, and how they interact with each other — things we can’t learn from nets alone.

Imagine looking at animals in a tidepool compared with taking them all out and observing them in a bucket.

The ROV dives each broke records for longest dive of the new Scripps’s ROV. Yay!

Next up is midwater work. I will be collecting animals that live in the open ocean, a community of odd deep-sea fishes, jellies, and shrimplike animals. I look forward to telling you more about what I’m working on out here.

For background on the San Diego Coastal Expedition, please visit: https://sites.google.com/site/sandiegoseaflex/

Previously in this series:

The San Diego Coastal Expedition
The San Diego Coastal Expedition: Underway!

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Biologist Robert Hanlon studies how cephalopods, a group of marine animals that includes octopus, squid, and cuttlefish, blend into their surroundings by changing the color and pattern of their skin.

Hanlon captured a particularly incredible example of an octopus going in and out of camouflage while diving in the Caribbean. The video was first posted to Science Friday last August.

Here's how Hanlon described the moment to NPR's multimedia editor Flora Lichtman:

Well, the scene is this: diving along a shallow coral reef in the Caribbean and there's a rock sitting out in a sand plain, all by itself, and it's just looks like a plain, boring rock. And as the video comes a little bit closer to the rock, suddenly, one-third of it turns into a bright white octopus that has been beautifully camouflaged, and suddenly goes out of the camouflage because the cameramen are so close and then it inks in the face and swims off. So you - it really was - I think I yelled wow at the moment of...

Check out the exciting moment in the GIF below:

And here's the full video:

SEE ALSO:  These Hybrid Animals Will Be Created Because Of Climate Change

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In the dark of night, between Monday, March 17, and Tuesday, March 18, dozens of fully formed baby octopuses burst forth from their outsized eggs.

It seems only natural that these octopuses would begin their life under the cover of darkness. These baby Caribbean dwarf octopuses (Octopus mercatoris) come from an elusive family of octopods that are difficult to track down—even in captivity. Aside from their petite stature, they are also nocturnal and expert hiders, which keeps them safe from predators but often out of our sight as well.

Given this cryptic behavior, the Mote Marine Laboratory's aquarium in Sarasota, Fla., where the octopuses hatched, has decided not to try to display them to the public yet. But their cephalopod specialist Brian Siegel is currently looking into the best way to show off these and other nocturnal (or otherwise shy) ceph species.

The babies came from a female that had been captured off the coast of Florida near the lab. The female had apparently already mated before she arrived at the aquarium, because the eggs she laid proved to be viable.

These young dwarf octopuses might seem small—and, compared to objects on our human scale, they are. But they are also a rarity among octopuses. Most octopus species lay thousands upon thousands of tiny eggs. But this octopus laid just 50 or so in her brood. And each egg measured in at roughly a quarter inch long—relatively large for an octopus that, itself, reaches a length of just an inch and a half or so.

As with other octopuses that come from small broods of big eggs, these babies took a long time to develop—some two months. But when they hatched, unlike most octopus species that start life as larvae, these octopuses already looked like mini adults.

Siegel is also hoping to establish a program to rear these dwarf octopuses to supply other research institutions and aquariums.

To read more about the awesome octopus, check out Octopus! The Most Mysterious Creature In the Sea.

SEE ALSO: Try To Find The Octopus In This Video

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Octopus arms are amazing things. They live on for an hour after being amputated; they move on their own; they sport hundreds of suckers that grasp things reflexively; and they can bend and stretch in seemingly infinite combinations.

But all of those features should mean that octopuses spend most of their time as big, knotted bundles of limbs — after all, imagine how difficult it would be to have eight arms that literally had minds of their own flailing around your body. Now, a new study finds that octopuses solve this independent-arm problem with skin excretions that prevent arms from grabbing one another.

"This is amazing, how evolution found this simple solution to a potentially very, very difficult and maybe even impossible-to-solve problem," study researcher Guy Levy, a doctoral candidate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Live Science. The findings could inform the engineering of nature-inspired robots, Levy added. [See Video of Octopus Avoiding Arm Skin]

Independent arms

Octopuses are incredibly dexterous. They can twist open screw-top jars, peel apart oysters and otherwise manipulate their environments with their agile arms. These arms have their own mini-nervous systems that can control movement without contacting the octopus brain. Humans also have some motor reflexes that can occur without the brain's input, but these reflexes tend to be simple, like the kneejerk response that happens when a doctor taps your kneecap.

The octopus arm, in comparison, can live on after amputation, crawling around and grasping anything in its path. And amputation is common in the wild — octopus arms regrow after they're lost, and octopuses may even eat their own arms or those lost by others.

Levy, along with his co-author Nir Nesher and doctoral advisor Binyamin Hochner at The Hebrew University and collaborator Frank Grasso at the City University of New York, wanted to find out how these eight semi-autonomous arms avoided grappling with one another.

The researchers first amputated arms from the common octopus (Octopus vulgaris) and let the arms interact. (The octopuses were anesthetized before losing their arms, though the animals are not very bothered by arm amputation, Levy said.) The team found that amputated arms would not grab each other. Nor would they grab octopus-arm skin stretched over a plastic dish. An amputated arm would grasp another arm that had been skinned, however. [8 Crazy Facts About Octopuses]

Strange behavior

Clearly, something about octopus skin was protecting the arms from one another. But what? The researchers suspected some sort of chemical excretion.

To test the idea, Levy and his colleagues used chemicals to extract the substances on octopus skin. They then smeared the extract on plastic dishes and offered them to amputated octopus arms. For comparison purposes, they also offered dishes smeared with fish skin extract and with a neutral gel alone to the octopus arms.

They found that the octopus arms again avoided association with octopus skin. Their grasp on the octopus skin-smeared plastic was 10 times weaker than their grasp on plastic smeared with gel alone, and 20 times weaker than the grasp on fish-smeared plastic. (Yes, octopus arms still grasp for food, even after they're detached.)

Next, the researchers took the study to live octopuses. But here's where things got weird. Sometimes octopuses would eagerly snatch up and eat an amputated arm, Levy said. Other times, they'd dance around the potential meal, rubbing it, but not grabbing it. If they did grab it, they'd cling to the skin-free portion where the octopus arm has been cut from the body, and they'd hold the arm in their beaks gingerly, letting it dangle like a spaghetti noodle. The researchers dubbed this "spaghetti holding."

Self-recognition

In repeated tests, the researchers found that octopuses are more likely to behave strangely over their own arms than those of a stranger. Ninety-five percent of the time, octopuses will use their suckers to grasp another octopus' amputated limb. They'll use their suckers on their own amputated limb less than 40 percent of the time. Likewise, octopuses treated another octopus' arm as food 72 percent of the time, compared with less than 28 percent of the time with their own arms.

Clearly, Levy said, the chemicals used by octopus arms to avoid one another are specific to the individual. The researchers have yet to isolate the precise secretions, but are working on that now, he said.

Self-recognition is common in nature, Levy said. Immune cells, for example, must differentiate between body cells and foreign invaders. But the amazing thing about the octopus find is that the animals use chemical recognition in motor control, he said.

The researchers are part of a team working on building a robotic octopus arm for use in medicine and surgery, because of the arms' amazing flexibility and dexterity. A medical octopus robot arm wouldn't need to avoid grasping other arms, because there would only be one, Levy said. But the same principles could still apply. For example, a robot arm that needed to snake through the intestines to reach a surgical site might be programmed to avoid molecules on the intestinal wall to prevent it grasping the wrong thing.

The researchers report their findings today (May 15) in the journal Current Biology.

Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article onLive Science.

• Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature
• Release the Kraken! Giant Squid Photos
• Octopuses Know Their Own Amputated Arms | Video

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A psychic cephalopod named Paul gained international fame during the 2010 World Cup when he accurately predicted the outcomes of all six of Germany's matches.

Paul, who resided at the Sea Life Aquarium in Oberhausen, Germany, chose his teams by placing food into or retrieving it from one of two glass cases, labeled with the teams' logos, which keepers lowered into his tank. Paul nailed every aspect of Germany's performance in South Africa, including a shocking win against Serbia, according to The Guardian. 

Technically, Paul's divination started at the Euro 2008 tournament, but his performance during the last World Cup made him a household name. In fact, some Argentines, so upset over his guess of Germany's win, even threatened to cook and eat Paul, The Telegraph reported. 

“Common octopuses like Paul are very intelligent. We equate their intelligence with that of a dog, and they love problem solving and figuring things out," Fiona Smith, head of animal care at Paul's facility, told The Telegraph. 

And Paul didn't confine his omnipotence to just soccer. He started weighing in on football and basketball games too, before his death due to old age in October 2010. Since Paul's passing, other oracle octopuses (rudely named Paul as well) have tried to take his spot. But none have proven as successful. We'll never forget.

Today, Paul makes a triumphant return today as the Google Doodle. Watch him scratch his haloed head over the outcome of Brazil's and Mexico's match. 

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A real-life "Octomom" off the coast of California has been declared a champion of parenting — and patience — in the animal world.

After the deep-sea creature laid a clutch of eggs, she protected her babies until they hatched 4.5 years later, without even leaving to eat. Not only is that four times longer than most shallow-water octopuses even live, but it's also the longest brooding period known of any animal on the planet, elephants and emperor penguins included, according to a new study.

The findings, detailed July 30 in the journal PLOS ONE, suggest octopuses far below the surface might live much longer than their shore-hugging cousins. The case of extreme parenting also illustrates how some animals have evolved grueling strategies to ensure their offspring survive in such a hostile environment as the deep ocean. [See Photos of 'Octomom' Shielding Her Eggs]

Meet 'Octomom'

Scientists were first introduced to the long-suffering octopus in April 2007 during a spontaneous dive with a remotely operated vehicle, or ROV, in a deep underwater valley known as the Monterey Submarine Canyon.

Bruce Robison, a senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), and his colleagues had been using the ROV to spy on squid, fishes and jellies that live closer to the surface.

"On a lark one day, we said let's go to the bottom and see what's there," Robison said.

They steered the camera-equipped vessel down to a rocky outcrop 4,583 feet (1,397 meters) below the surface, where temperatures hover around 37 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius). There, the team encountered a single female octopus of the species Graneledone boreopacifica. They went back to the site 38 days later and saw the same octopus, this time guarding a clutch of eggs fixed to a near-vertical face of the ledge.

"She had very characteristic scars on some of her arms," Robison told Live Science. "We just called her Octomom."

Though the deep sea was generally out of their realm of scientific study, Robison and his colleagues seized on the opportunity to watch this elusive species brood from beginning to end. They didn't expect they'd be watching Octomom for more than four years.

53-month vigil

In more than a dozen subsequent dives with the ROV, the team never saw Octomom leave her eggs. She always had her eight arms curled over her clutch of about 160 eggs, though occasionally, she did smack away crustaceans that got too close. While the developing octopuses were subsisting on a big yolk inside their eggs, the scientists never saw Octomom eat. She even resisted the temptation of crabmeat offered to her with the ROV's robotic arm.

Octopuses — which have just one clutch of eggs in their lifetime — are typically believed to stop eating altogether, or eat very little, when brooding. But Octomom's perseverance was extreme. Watching the eggs took a toll on Octomom's body, and for a cephalopod, she looked old. Her mantle shrank, her eyes got cloudy and her skin sagged and faded in color.

"She was really slowed down," Robison said. "At those very cold temperatures, her metabolic rate was very slow. She wasn't burning energy until she had to protect the eggs or keep them clean." [8 Crazy Facts About Octopuses]

The last time Robison and his colleagues saw Octomom was September 2011. By October 2011, she was gone. Her egg capsules were left in tatters, a half dozen young octopuses floated nearby, suggesting a successful hatch, after which Octomom likely died.

"This is really surprising, and I've been studying octopuses for over 20 years," said Janet Voight, Associate Curator of Zoology at the Field Museum in Chicago, who was not involved in the study but reviewed it. "The photos to me — skeptic that I am as a scientist — support that it is the same individual."

Octomom's astonishing brooding period totaled 53 months — a record in the animal kingdom.

For comparison, the previous eight-armed record-holder for brooding length was Bathypolypus arcticus, a deep-sea octopus that protected its eggs for 14 months in a lab. Among fish, the Magellan plunder fish of the Antarctic holds the title for the longest guarded incubation period for eggs, at four to five months. Male emperor penguins famously spend two harsh winter months brooding their eggs — a record for birds. Elephants can be pregnant for up to 21 months, which is the longest gestation period for mammals, while frilled sharks carry their embryos internally for about 42 months, Robison and colleagues wrote.

A long, extreme life

For a group of animals admired for their intelligence, octopuses have been considered surprisingly short-lived. But Octomom's long brooding period suggests this deep-sea octopus species could have a life span far longer than scientists' current estimates for cephalopod longevity. [Cuttlefish Cuties: Photos of Color-Changing Cephalopods]

"We know that shallow-water species live from one to two years, and usually brooding makes up a quarter of the lifespan," Robison said. "If you take that rule of thumb and apply it to this species, you get a lifespan that's potentially 16 to 18 years."

Spending a quarter of their life taking care of their young could actually be a smart reproductive strategy for G. boreopacifica moms.

"Any invertebrate animal has a couple of options," Robison said. "They can either make lots and lots of eggs and hope a few will survive, or take that energy and instead make a few eggs and spend that energy to guard them, protect them and give them a long time to develop so that the ones that hatch are competent and capable, facing the world."

For an octopus species living in a hostile environment like the deep sea, it pays to give birth to "mini-adults," Robison said.

Voight agreed. She has studied G. boreopacifica before, but has never been able to bring a live one to the surface. When she examined hatchlings of the species, she found that the males, at a few centimeters long, were developed enough to have a specialized arm that is used to pass a sperm packet along to a female.

"Those hatchling octopuses were as mature as 3-month-old tropical shallow-water octopus," Voight said.

Both Robison and Voight said no scientist has ever seen G. boreopacifica mate in the wild, and it's still not clear how G. boreopacifica moms are able to survive for so long. They expect the results of this study might not seem as extraordinary when scientists learn more about the lives of cephalopods far below the ocean surface.

"In the deep sea, we have so much to discover," Voight said.

• The 7 Weirdest Moms in the Animal Kingdom
• Gallery: Cutest Creatures from Deep Sea Canyons
• The 10 Wildest Pregnancies in the Animal Kingdom

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SEE ALSO: 11 Stunning Underwater Photos

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A team from MIT and Duke created flexible polymers that can change color and texture in response to a controlled voltage, essentially allowing them to camouflage an object with the flip of a switch.

This video originally appeared on Slate Video. Watch More: slate.com/video

Produced by Jim Festante, an actor/writer in Los Angeles and regular video contributor to Slate. He is the author of the Image Comics miniseries The End Times of Bram and Ben.

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Did you think you were safe on the land?

This crab did.

This crab thought wrong.

Porsche Indrisie was relaxing and shooting some video on the beach in Yallingup, Western Australia, when she captured an incredible unexpected moment. 

Check it out: 

The cephalopod launches itself out of the water onto the crab. And even though the crab tries to make its escape across land into a different pool, the octopus doesn't give up then.

It follows then drags the crab back across land into its hidden lair.

"I didn't know why i chose to film this crab, but thought i would try and get closer to it but something else beat me to it," she comments on her video.

There, it most likely punctured the crustacean with its beak, allowing it access to the tender morsels inside.

Check out the full video:

And crazy as this seems, this is not unique behavior for the octopus — known as one of the smartest creatures on Earth.

Some aquariums put special locks on their octopus tanks to prevent the creatures from breaking out and invading nearby habitats for a snack – something they are reported to do, but something that isn't confirmed to have happened for sure. And they're also known for figuring out how to open jars, turn off lights, and using tools.

Don't mess with an octopus.

SEE ALSO: An Incredibly Rare Megamouth Shark Just Washed Up In The Philippines

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SEATTLE (Reuters) - A giant male octopus caught on cell phone video scaling his glass display tank at the Seattle Aquarium and reaching several tentacles over its open top has sparked Internet speculation that the massive mollusk was trying to mount an escape bid.

But aquarium officials say the octopus, named Ink, was not attempting a jailbreak in the video, which has gone viral on the Internet, but simply learning to embrace his new home with all eight arms.

"It was not an escape attempt," aquarium spokesman Tim Kuniholm said of the video, in which Ink inched his way up the cylindrical glass tank to squeals from onlookers. "It's a new exhibit and the animal was exploring his boundaries."

A Seattle aquarium employee later put Ink's arms back inside the case, and a so-called "evening cap" was fastened on top to help keep the curious fellow in place, Kuniholm said.

"Octopuses are very inquisitive by nature, and in this case ... Ink is an overachiever," he said.

Ink is one of two new giant Pacific octopuses on display at the aquarium. Found in Puget Sound, they are the world's largest species of octopuses, weighing on average about 90 pounds (41 kg) and measuring 20 feet (6.1 meters) across.

Kuniholm said the two male octopuses are kept in separate homes at the aquarium because the species is solitary by nature, with males and females coming together only to mate during their short 3-to-4-year lifespan.

In the next year, Ink will be released back into the wild as part of an ongoing education and conservation program for the species, the aquarium said. 

(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Sandra Maler)

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With an estimated net worth of $17.5 billion, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen can afford some expensive toys.

His 414-foot yacht, "Octopus," has to be one of the best billionaire toys around. 

Fully equipped with a pool, two helicopters, a movie theater, basketball court, recording studio, and accommodations for 26 guests in 41 suites, Octopus makes for an extremely luxurious escape. 

We've rounded up some of the yacht's craziest features here.

1. It cost Allen about $200 million to build.

Octopus is said to have cost Allen up to $200 million. Custom-built by German shipbuilders Lurssen over several years, it was officially launched in 2003.

2. It costs an estimated $384,000 a week to operate.

Yacht owners are expected to pay approximately 10% of the original purchase price each year to cover basic maintenance and operations.

By that logic, Allen pays about $384,000 a week to keep Octopus in tiptop shape. That adds up to approximately $20 million a year, according to New York Social Diary.

3. It weighs more than 9,000 tons. 

Measuring a whopping 414 feet, Octopus is one of the biggest private yachts in the world. According to Boat International, it was the largest when it launched in 2003, though yachts belonging to David Geffen and Roman Abramovich have since surpassed it.

4. He employs a permanent staff of 60.

Keeping such a massive operation running requires a lot of helping hands: captains, first mate, engineers, deckhands, in addition to chefs and stewardesses.

The yacht has 28 cabins just for the crew, the Superyacht Times reports. 

5. The tender — a boat used to shuttle guests between the yacht and the shore — is 63 feet long.

In keeping with the sea creature theme, Octopus' tender is called "Man-of-War." At 63 feet long, it's a decently sized boat itself.

6. It has two submarines.

Allen has said that Octopus is "less a Bentley than a Range Rover" because of the state-of-the art exploration equipment onboard.

According to Vulcan, one of the submarines, called Pagoo, can dive for up to eight hours and accommodate 10 people. It's stored in an interior dock on the bottom of the yacht.

A second submarine, called the Octo ROV, can be remotely controlled and dive up to 8,843 feet. The ROV has been loaned out for Google Earth's "Explore the Ocean" project and for a documentary on the Discovery Science Channel. 

7. A crew discovered a Japanese battleship with one of them.

In March, Allen announced that a crew onboard Octopus had located a WWII-era battleship at the bottom of the ocean in the Philippines.

It wasn't the first time Octopus has been used for purposes beyond entertainment for Allen and his inner circle. In 2012, Allen loaned the yacht to the Royal Navy in an effort to find a bell from a British WWII-era battleship. The search was eventually called off due to bad weather.

Octopus is also a member of the Automated Mutual Assistance Vessel Rescue, which means that it can be used to assist other boats in distress. 

8. It also has two helicopter landing pads.

There's one in the front and one in the back.

9. Mick Jagger has used the recording studio onboard.

A longtime fan of rock and roll — he built an entire museum dedicated to Jimi Hendrix memorabilia — Allen reportedly lent Octopus' recording studio to Mick Jagger when he was recording an album with SuperHeavy in 2011. 

Usher, Dave Stewart, U2, and Johnny Cash have all reportedly performed onboard Octopus.

10. It has a glass-bottom pool. 

Other amenities include a basketball court, move theater, and a swimming pool with its own bar area. 

11. Parties Allen has hosted on the boat have drawn loads of A-list guests.

Octopus was built for a good time. 

Each year at the Cannes International Film Festival in Cannes, France, Allen throws an extravagant party attended by actors, filmmakers, and supermodels.

Actors John C. Reilly, Jessica Lowndes, and Kelly Rutherford, as well as models Karlie Kloss and Melissa Bolona were all in attendance at this year's party.

Sharon Stone, Adrian Grenier, Russian actress Svetlana Metkina, and model Natasha Poly came last year.

Allen usually treats his guests to a live performance.

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NOW WATCH: Here's what Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen actually found at the bottom of the ocean in the Philippines

It doesn't take a backbone to be a genius — or a master of the comedic arts, apparently.

An octopus has been captured on film exhibiting one of the most remarkable (and amusing) examples of tool usage in the animal kingdom. Footage shows the eight-limbed animal literally walking along the ocean floor carrying two halves of a broken coconut shell beneath his arms, seemingly without rhyme or reason.

But this tentacled one knows exactly what he's doing.

As it turns out, some octopuses, like this one, possess the foresight to actually pack along coconut shells to use as protective shelters when exploring areas without adequate places to hide.

Scientists say this behavior is the first evidence of tool use by an octopus, putting the aquatic animals in a league with a small number of other animals known to do the same.

 Interestingly, this incredible finding was nearly lost to science within moments after being discovered. Julian Finn, a researcher from the Victoria Museum in Australia, who was among the first scientists to have witnessed this behavior first hand, was so impressed by what he observed — it nearly killed him.

"I almost drowned laughing when I saw this the first time," Finn told the BBC. "I could tell it was going to do something, but I didn't expect this — I didn't expect it would pick up the shell and run away with it."

Take a deep breath and watch footage of the octopus in its entirety below:

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Washington (AFP) - Some say she looks like a ghost from the Pac-Man video game, but she's anything but spooky. In fact, the fist-sized pink octopus is so cute scientists may call her "Opisthoteuthis Adorabilis."

Researchers in California are looking for an appropriate Latin species designation for the mysterious cephalopod and, while little is yet known about it, few would deny that the specimens found so far are adorable.

Stephanie Bush of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute said that after a year of study she is preparing to submit a report to a scientific review that would confer a name on the species, a form of Flapjack octopus.

"New species are discovered every year, not all of them get described, it can take a lot of time, years sometimes," she said.

Some other species have been deemed adorable -- such as Lophornis adorabilis, the White-crested Coquette hummingbird -- and Bush said: "I don't see any obvious reason why it would be inappropriate ... it's easy to pronounce and popular with the public."

Aside from how she looks, we don't know much more about the new octopus, it lives in deep cold waters and the 12 individuals that have been studied so far have all been female.

"They spend most of their time on the bottom, sitting on the sediment, but they need to move around to find food, mates," Bush said.

Bush is trying to incubate a batch of octopus eggs in her laboratory, but they develop very slowly because of the cold temperature of the deep ocean and may not hatch for two or three years.

Anyone charmed enough by the cute creature to want to see one in the wild would have to dive in the Pacific to between 200 and 600 meters to where the water is only 6 degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit).

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With their eight arms and giant egg-shaped head, octopuses are one of the most alien-looking creatures on the planet.

Yet scientists have an extremely difficult time studying them in the wild because these highly intelligent invertebrates are the ultimate masters of disguise.

In her book, "Octopus!" Katherine Harmon Courage travels the globe to swim, observe, and even taste some of the many octopuses of the world. Here are 30 mind-blowing facts she learned about this squishy predator of the sea along her epic journey.

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Over 95% of all animals on Earth are invertebrates. The octopus is the smartest of them all and has approximately 300 million neurons throughout its body. That's not much compared to the 100 billion in humans, but it's a giant leap from the 16 million in frogs.

Octopuses are solitary creatures who spend most of their lives swimming alone, even when it comes time to mate.

Some, but not all, types of male octopus will steer clear from a female mate. Instead of getting close, he'll send a package of his sperm to her from a distance, which she'll grab and store for later.

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With its eight grasping arms, camouflage-like skin, and large, doughnut-shaped brain, the octopus’ unique physical traits have intrigued scientists for centuries — the late British zoologist Martin Wells dubbed the sea-dwelling creature an alien.

Now the predatory mollusk, which is thought to be one of the most intelligent invertebrates, with elaborate problem-solving and learning behaviors, has beat out squid, cuttlefish, and nautiluses in becoming the first cephalopod to have its entire genome sequenced.

Researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley sequenced the genome of the California two-spot octopus, Octopus bimaculoides. The work will allow scientists to study the genetic factors that give way to the octopus' odd physical traits, and may reveal novel insights not only about the unique biology of cephalopods, but also about the evolution of traits that give rise to a complex nervous system and adaptive camouflage.

The genome map reveals many genes that are unique to the octopus, including six genes that code for reflectins, the proteins that enable the animal’s skin to employ their camouflage technique by reflecting light and changing color. Reflectin has recently been studied to harness its abilities to create a better camouflage material for soldiers or others. While this new genomic information could help in that area, the study's authors say that’s still years out. First they hope to sequence the genomes of other cephalopods and compare each one’s reflectin proteins to understand them all better on the genomic level.

The researchers also found a gene family called the protocadherins to be more common and more complex than expected. The protocadherins help out in nervous system development and the interactions between neurons. The octopus genome contained 168 protocadherin genes, which is 10 times more than many vertebrates, and more than twice as many as humans and other mammals.

“This was very surprising,” said Clifton Ragsdale, a professor of neurobiology at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study. “We didn’t expect to see that level of expansion.” However, given the octopus’ complex nervous system, this may make sense. “It seems clear that they are vital to setting up neuronal wiring,” said Caroline Albertin, a graduate student in the department of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and the co-lead author of the report.

The octopus also has a large number of transposons, or “jumping genes,” that are able to rearrange themselves on the genome. Albertin said in a press release that it looked like a normal invertebrate genome that’s “been put into a blender and mixed,” which leads to genes being placed in new environments and performing novel functions.

Going forward, the researchers want to study the genomes of other cephalopods, which researchers from other institutions are currently working on through the Cephalopod Sequencing Consortium. The results may be out in the next few years, allowing scientists to compare the cephalopod genomes to each other.

Roger Hanlon, a senior scientist and cephalopod researcher at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Laboratory, who was not involved with this study, agrees that the octopus genome not only provides an important stepping stone for understanding cephalopods, but also allows scientists to think about how the brain produces complex behaviors on vastly different levels.

“Scientists can now begin to think about how brains produce behaviors at different scales," he says. "The cephalopods are an interesting group because of their higher cognitive abilities and apparently different brain structure, all wrapped into a short lifecycle compared to vertebrate animals.”

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I ate a lot of interesting McDonald's food on a recent trip to South Korea. But the strangest, most intriguing food I tried was live octopus. It was tough, slimy, and still squirming around even after being chopped into tiny pieces. Not to mention the octopus arms suction on to your tongue and throat when you try to chew them. 

Produced by Will Wei

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I ate a lot of interesting McDonald's food on a trip to South Korea. But the strangest, most intriguing food I tried was live octopus. It was tough, slimy, and still squirming around even after being chopped into tiny pieces. Not to mention the octopus arms suction on to your tongue and throat when you try to chew them. 

Produced by Will Wei

Follow TI: On Facebook

Join the conversation about this story »

Octopuses, once thought to be loners who lived and hunted with little interaction from others of their kind, are actually quite social.

Scientists have discovered a village of sorts used by more than 50 octopuses on the sea floor about 17 metres deep in Jervis Bay, south of Sydney. The site is a flat area formed around an unidentified, partially buried artifact that provides places to hide, or dens, for octopuses. Remains of scallops eaten by octopuses have accumulated as an extended midden, forming a shell bed of rough oval shape around 3 meters along its longest diameter.

They like living near each other and regularly interact with their neighbours, using their colour-changing abilities to communicate and sometimes get into brawls. This footage from the University of Sydney documents octopuses fighting:

The researchers watched more than 52 hours of underwater film footage of one small area, witnessing 186 octopus interactions and more than 500 actions.

"There's a lot of pushing other animals around, kicking them out of the site, and sometimes vigorous fights," says Peter Godfrey-Smith, a professor from the faculty of science at the University of Sydney.

"We showed when octopuses change colour they are signalling their degree of aggression," he said. "Darker colours go with aggressive behaviours, and these are combined with other displays."

Here are some examples:

The researchers were tipped off about the octopus site by a diver who alerted an online community of people interested in cephalopods that he had seen something interesting.

Researcher David Scheel, a professor at Alaska Pacific University, says octopuses use body patterns and postures to signal to each other during disputes. "The postures and patterns can be quite flashy, such as standing very tall, raising the body mantle high above the eyes, and turning very dark," he says.

And when an octopus with a dark body colour approached another dark octopus, the interaction was more likely to escalate to grappling. "Dark colour appears to be associated with aggression, while paler colours accompany retreat," says Scheel.

Octopuses also displayed on high ground, standing with their web spread and their mantle elevated. The researchers suspect the octopuses' believe that this makes them appear larger and more conspicuous. The findings, the first to document the systematic use of signals during agonistic interactions among octopuses, are published in the journal Current Biology.

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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Okeanos Explorer just completed its first operational dive of 2016.

Its mission was to explore an area in the Hawaiian Archipelago to gather information about the sea floor between Necker Island and Necker Ridge. But the whole thing was undermined by the appearance of a tiny, adorable, ghost-like octopus that may represent a never-before-seen species. 

The ridiculously cute discovery came when the team was using the Deep Discoverer, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), to collect geological samples from the sea floor about 4,290 metres (14,000 feet) under the surface. Everything was going as planned until the ROV came upon a flat rock covered in sediment with a small, white octopus hanging out on top of it.

"The appearance of this animal was unlike any published records, and was the deepest observation ever for this type of cephalopod,"the team announced.

These types of deep-sea octopuses are broken up into two different groups: cirrate (or Dumbo octopuses) and incirrate octopuses. Cirrate octopuses are known for their finned sides and cirri-covered arms while incirrate octopods have neither.

Researchers believe that the newly photographed specimen belongs to the incirrate group, but was unlike any incirrate they've ever countered. The team explains:

"[T]his animal was particularly unusual because it lacked the pigment cells, called chromatophores, typical of most cephalopods, and it did not seem very muscular. This resulted in a ghost-like appearance, leading to a comment on social media that it should be called Casper, like the friendly cartoon ghost. It is almost certainly an undescribed species and may not belong to any described genus."

Another interesting note is that this is the first time an incirrate octopus has been observed at such a depth, which furthers the hypothesis that it's a previously unknown species.

Despite all the evidence to support their hypothesis, the team will still have to go through the lengthy process of proving that the photogenic octopus is, in fact, a new species. Until then, at least we have some great pictures to hold us over.

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