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Octopuses are such an interesting animal that I decided to share some of their secrets with you.
Let's start out with what is an Octopus. An Octopus is an invertebrate. It is a member of the phylum Mollusca, which makes them related to slugs, snails, conchs, clams and scallops. It is a member, along with squids and cuttlefish, of the cephalopods.
Octopus comes from the Greek word "octopodes, " which means "eight footed." Of course octopuses don't really have 8 feet, they have 8 arms. And for you trivia buffs, because octopus is derived from Greek rather than Latin the most correct plural is octopuses not octopi.
There are over 250 different octopus species in the world. Only about 10 of these species shows up in aquariums.
Octopuses are dioecious, with their sex determined by the time they hatch from their eggs. Visible sex differences do not appear until octopuses begin to reach sexual maturity. The male develops a special organ, the hectocotylus, at the tip of one arm, usually the third right arm. This hectocotylus is inserted into the female's mantle to deliver sperm packets.
Most species mate separated
from each other by a short distance, sometimes even from one octopus den to
another. Mating may last for a few hours or as short as several minutes, depending
on the species, and it may occur several times over a period of weeks. Well
if I have whetted your appetite for octopus, then please let me know and I will
continue next issue. Bye for now.
