The octopus is a member of the mollusc family. They have two eyes, four pairs of arms, and a hard beak located at the centre of where the arms connect. Most octopi have no internal or external skeleton, which allows the octopus to squeeze through tight areas that most animals cannot. The octopus is the most intelligent of the invertebrates.

The octopus lives anywhere in the ocean. However, mostly small octopi live in warm to tropical waters, while large one live in colder waters. The largest octopus is the North Pacific Giant Octopus, which usually weighs around Thirty-three pounds and has the arm span of fourteen feet. The biggest octopus ever caught was a North Pacific Giant Octopus. Captured off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, it weighed over 600 pounds and had an arm span of thirty feet. The smallest octopus in the world is the Octopus Wolfi, which weighs less then a gram and is only one and a half centimetres long.

The octopus mostly hunts at night, when it is easiest to catch prey and avoid predators. Its prey, depending on the size of the octopi, includes crabs, fish, oysters, some species of sharks, lobster and crayfish, other small octopi and small squid, shrimp and carrion. Octopi have many predators, depending on their size; fish, other octopi, sharks, certain eels, dolphins and humans hunt them. The octopus is lucky to have many defensive tactics to help protect against predators. They have the ability to squeeze into tight areas, shoot a cloud of ink to temporarily blind a hunter, change colour to camouflage into the surroundings and can expel a large jet of water to propel them quickly away. They are also extremely intelligent and can out think many predators.

The octopus’s vast intelligence allows them to adapt and learn. They are able to perform tasks such as opening jars to reach the food inside and have shown themselves as clever escape artists. Octopi have escaped from aquariums, scuttled across the floor to get to a different tank just so they can devour all the fish inside. Imagine the surprise of the fish hobbyist, who comes home from work to find not only their octopus in the wrong tank but that the tank is completely devoid of fish.

The octopus is an amazing animal that has lived, virtually unchanged, in Earth’s oceans for millions of years. They have been around long before man ever walked on this planet and will continue to be here after man is long gone.