Facts about Blue-ringed Octopuses
These octopuses live in Pacific ocean from Japan to Australia. They are one of the world's most venomous creatures. An individual will use its dermal chromatophore cells to camouflage itself until provoked. When provoked, it will quickly change its color becoming bright yellow with blue rings or lines. They are small in size. A blue-ringed octopus is normally the size of a golf ball, but despite its small size, it carries enough poison to kill 26 humans within a matter of minutes. And there is no known antodote. The poison or toxin it contains is created in its salivary glands. When at some distance from the prey, they can also squirt their venom through the water to attack its prey. They mostly hunt at the day time. It has two glands which both contain venom. As obvious, one is for hunting its prey. But the other one is for killing those who they believe are stalking their prey. Their diet mainly consist of crabs and shrimps. However they may feed on fish if they can catch them. Also, in laboratory conditions, the blue-ringed octopuses have been observed to eat each other which has not been observed in wild. Female blue-ringed octopuses lay only a single clutch of fifty eggs in their lifetime. They incubate their eggs for six months and once the eggs hatch, the female dies. The offspring hatched will be able to mate next year. Like all other octopuses it also has three hearts and blue blood. |
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