What's the plural of "Octopus"?

Octopuses, Octopi, Octagon?

I have heard this question being posed several times during my lifetime. And to this day I don’t know if I have ever heard an agreement. This makes sense, it is not often that people need to find out the plural of Octopus, and if they do, whatever comes to mind usually suffices.

The point of this post, though, is not to talk about the plural of Octopus (if you say Octopi, don’t chat to me) I wanted to talk about Octopuses in general. They are such COOL animals. And it baffles me that they are not talked about at all, not about how delicious they are, but how absolutely and insanely smart, talented and adaptive they are. So to make up for all those years, this is me ranting about Octopus.

The reason

So the reason I am making this post in the first place is because I recently watched this video on YouTube, by this guy called Mark Rober, who’s also a cool guy, and its him taking his Octopus through an underwater obstacle course/maze to see if it is fit to go back in the ocean. And of course, the only way I got to this video is through YouTube algorithm + my procrastination. But I think it is one of the few times I am glad I procrastinated because I ended up watching the video twice, the second time I forced one of my friends to watch it with me (lol), because what kind of friend would I be if I did not let him in on this awesomeness.

Okay, enough for the chitchat here are some things I gathered from the video that are pretty cool. Alternatively, you could google search “cool/interesting facts about Octopuses” and you can get a list, but you’d miss my amazing commentary but that’s whatever.

Okay, now cool facts for real:

1. Their tentacles

   These guys’ tentacles are the bread and butter of their existence. Most of their nerves (around two-thirds) are found in their tentacles and they use them to collect sensory information about their surroundings. If you cut one of them off, it grows back, identical to the rest. Furthermore, the piece you just cut off functions like it has a mind of its own (eg camouflaging when it needs to). speaking of camouflaging

2. Their amazing camouflaging skills

   To be honest until a few weeks ago, if I was asked to name a camouflaging organism I could only mention 1, the chameleon. I did not know that Octopuses can also camouflage. On top of that, I did not know just HOW much they could camouflage. So while a chameleon only changes colour, the Octopus changes colour, shape AND texture. Guys, if it was hiding in a coral reef you would MOST LIKELY NOT see it, because of how well it blends with the reef’s colour patterns, texture and overall shape. See below. If this is not the coolest thing you’ve seen in your life i don’t know what is.

   Title: Baby I’m not even here, I’m a hallucination

   

   (taken from Mark Rober’s video)

3. Their jelly-like body structure

   To help with their camouflage comes the fact that they are invertebrates, so they can bend and shift in any way they would want to. They can fit into most spaces as long as their mouth/beak can pass through it because it is the only hard part of their bodies. That being said it was so interesting for me when watching the YouTube video, because one of the obstacles in the maze was a revolving door, and I thought to myself there is no way it can get through because I struggle with revolving doors. But it did not have to think too much, He just squeezed in between one of the doors and the glass that was keeping it in. Fair play man.

Rapid fire facts: They can locomote on two of their limbs like they were legs, they have blue blood, they have three hearts, their stomach and brain and heart and all the good stuff are all found in what we call “its head”. Crazy stuff. Interesting stuff.

The reason that I wanted to write this is so that all of you can go watch that video and give the octopuses a bit more credit than you do at the moment. Go octopuses.

¡Hasta pronto!