International Octopus Day

Every October 8th is celebrated as International Octopus Day, and we want to highlight some facts that are not so well known but that will invite you to promote and protect their habitat.

Octopuses are known for their great taste but did you know that octopuses have great motor intelligence? Yes, octopuses are active predators, so they have a great capacity for movement. They also have the ability to radically change color, sometimes instantaneously. Shallow-water octopus species are able to rapidly change their coloration by adapting to the shades of the bottom through chromatophores, while deep-sea species are endowed with photophores that produce bioluminescence to camouflage themselves. Their pigments can be yellow, orange or red, often also brownish and black.

Octopuses can be found from the sea surface to a depth of 150 m, as well as in various types of ecosystems and rocky structures, crevices, phanerogam meadows, sandy or muddy areas on flat and open bottoms.

It is characterized by its visual acuity, since, unlike many invertebrates, its eyes have the same basic structure as mammals: cornea, iris, crystalline lens, retina (although somewhat less complex) and two eyelids. Their vision adapts easily to changes in brightness, but the octopus does not distinguish colors well.

Its maximum weight has been reported to be 10 kg, the average being 3 kg. Female octopuses are usually larger than males. They lay their eggs in groups, cover the clutch with their bodies, occasionally renew the water around the eggs by means of mantle contractions and clean them with their arms; they incubate them for 25 to 65 days. A female can deposit between 100,000 and 500,000 eggs.

Males die after mating and females die after the eggs hatch either by starvation or predation. A large number of cephalopod species (to which octopuses belong) are targeted by industrial fishing fleets as well as artisanal fishermen, and these catches have historically shown a tendency to increase.

Octopus fossils date back more than 300 million years. This means that the octopus is older than the dinosaur.

An interesting fact is that they have 500 million neurons in their brains and arms, for this reason, from Pescatore Seafood we take the time to highlight their importance in the marine ecosystem and to support their conservation.