Do you ever have the feeling that you are a plastic bag? The blanket octopus (Tremoctopus spp.) has a captivating swirl of billowing tentacles that resembles a kaleidoscopic cape. While the typical swimmer might fail to distinguish it from a strand of floating plastic, marine biologist Jactina Shackleton was ecstatic to identify this uncommon and lovely critter, as evidenced by her gleeful squeaks. “I had an amazing snorkel today and came across a BLANKET OCTOPUS!” Jacinta expressed herself on Instagram.
“These creatures are a rare pelagic octopus species that lives its entire existence in the open ocean. The first live male was discovered just in 2002!” Shackleton discovered the young female blanket octopus while swimming off the edge of Lady Elliot Island, a coral cay off the Great Barrier Reef’s southern tip, on Thursday. The seas are surrounded by a highly protected “Green Zone,” making it a home for a variety of wildlife (including pink and melanistic manta rays) – but witnessing a female blanket octopus here is “certainly a once-in-a-lifetime encounter,” as Shackleton puts it.
Shackleton was able to catch some images and video footage of the octopus, which is, quite frankly, just absurdly beautiful, despite her inability to suppress her excitement or hold her breath while she snorkeled, However, do not mislead by their beauty; the blanket octopus carries a unique shiv in the form of an amputated tentacle snatched from a deadly jellyfish.
Dr Julian Finn of Museums Victoria was the first to witness a blanket octopus alive, and he stated the species “illustrates the most severe case of sexual size dimorphism in a nonmicroscopic animal.” Given that an adult female can grow to be around two meters long (6.6 feet), the male can only grow to be 2.4 centimeters (0.9 inches), the highest gender size disparity in the animal kingdom, it’s a fair point nicely made. With such a wide range of sizes, you would think mating would be tough, and you would be right. For the little people whose sex arm is broken off in the process, the process is lethal, and they die soon after.
Males are also deficient in the blanket department, an area in which females shine, as evidenced by the videos and images, with a stunning iridescent cape. “I was so enthralled by its movements, it was as if it was dancing through the water with a flowing cape,” Shackleton told the Guardian. “You can’t take your eyes off it because the brilliant colors are so wonderful.”
