Common OctopusOctopus vulgaris

Alan Souto

Location

Kingdom: AnimaliaPhylum: MolluscaClass: CephalopadaOrder: OctopodaFamily: OctopodidaeGenus: OctopusSpecies: O. vulgaris

Scientific Classifcation

The common octopus is typically found in tropical waters throughout the world, such as the Mediterranean Sea and East Atlantic. They prefer the floor of relatively shallow, rocky, coastal waters, often no deeper than 200 meters.

Where they live

Prefer around 36 grams per liter, salinity throughout their global habitat is found to be between roughly 30 and 45 grams of salt per liter of water. Their preferred temperature ranges from about 15°C to 16°C. In especially warm seasons, the octopus can often be found deeper than usual in order to escape the warmer layers of water.

Preferred conditions

The common octopus hunts at dusk. Crabs, crayfish, and bivalve mollusks are preferred, although the octopus will eat almost anything it can catch.

Diet

 It is able to change color to camouflage , and is able to pounce upon any unwary prey that strays across its path. The prey is paralyzed by a nerve poison, which the octopus secretes in its saliva, and the octopus is able to grasp its prey using its powerful tentacles and their two rows of suckers. If the victim is a shelled mollusk, the octopus uses its beak to punch a hole in the shell before sucking out the fleshy contents.

How they devourer their prey

Training experiments have shown the common octopus can distinguish the brightness, size, shape, and horizontal or vertical orientation of objects. They are intelligent enough to learn how to unscrew a jar and are known to raid lobster traps

As well as climb out of their tanks and crawl away

Intelligence of a house cat

They’re one smart cookie