The octopus is a representative of the cephalopod familyshellfish. In the people, he is better known as an octopus, since he has eight huge tentacles. Since ancient times, many legends and myths go about this inhabitant of the seas. For example, the sailors believed that in the ocean there is a giant octopus-kraken, capable of dragging under the water a whole ship.
Given this, it is not surprising that today manyThe truth of these stories is of interest. Is the octopus an animal killer? Or are they just fictions of seasoned sailors? And if so, how big can there be octopuses?
Octopus: a brief description
The octopus is a marine animal.It is able to live only in salt water, far from noisy beaches and densely populated ports. You can meet an octopus in almost all the seas and oceans that are in the tropical and subtropical zones.
This creature leads a benthonic life, hidingamong the stones and seaweed. As a refuge, the octopus often chooses bottles thrown in water, vases, boxes and other garbage. If the bottom is clean, then the animal looks for empty clefts or simply burrows into the sand.
The octopus is a sea predator.His diet includes crabs, lobsters, fish and even other cephalopods. Curious is the fact that the octopus is able to change the color of its skin, like a chameleon. Due to this, he can remain invisible, being a few centimeters from his goal.
What does an octopus look like?
The octopus is an invertebrate animal, and if to bemore precisely, he has no bones at all. Therefore, its shape can vary depending on the circumstances, which allows it to slip even into the narrowest cracks.
The main feature of the octopus are its tentacles.They are always eight, unless for some reason the animal has not lost one of them. On each "hand" there are a number of suckers, thanks to which the octopus catches its prey.
The head of an octopus is egg-shaped. It contains two large eyes, well adapted to hunting in the aquatic environment.
Myths about the giant sprunts
Most legends about gigantic sizesoctopuses are fiction. Yes, once upon a time these creatures were really huge. However, at that time there were no people yet, which means that they could not tell about these monsters.
As for the real facts, for a long timeThe record holder was the Octopus caught in the Pacific. The length of its tentacles was 3.5 m, and its weight reached 60 kg. But soon a new, larger animal was caught off the coast of New Zealand. Thus, the weight of the new record holder is 75 kg, and the length of each of its eight “arms” reaches 4 meters.
