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As soon as the hectocotylus is detached the male becomes unnecessary and dies. During mating this arm detaches itself and crawls into the female’s reproductive vent. Males store their sperm in a modified quasi-sentient third right arm, known as a hectocotylus. What’s so startling is the size difference: Males are about the size of a walnut less than an inch longbut some females can reach a whopping six feet long. Whereas the female octopus can grow up to 2 meters (6 feet) in length, the male octopus is puny and does not grown longer than a few centimeters (1 to 2 inches). Blanket octopus pairs are some of the undersea world’s oddest couples.
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The fleshy cloak within those arms scare away predators. The blanket octopus splays out its long arms in case it senses any danger. It lives on the surface of the tropical waters. They are commonly known as blanket octopuses, in reference to the long, transparent webs that connect the dorsal and dorsolateral arms of the adult females. Blanket octopus (Tremoctopus) is a genus of octopus that contains four species. As a last resort they can jettison the blankets as a decoy and jet away while the confused predator attacks the highly visible membranes.īlanket octopuses exhibit extreme sexual dimorphism. Tremoctopus is a genus of pelagic cephalopods, containing four species that occupy surface to mid-waters in subtropical and tropical oceans. They spends their entire life in the open ocean and are occasionally seen by deep see divers. Discovered in 1830, the beautifully strange and elusive Blanket Octopus can be found in both subtropical and tropical oceans. Since blanket octopuses do not produce ink and can not camouflage themselves as rocks, coral, or sand, they rely heavily on their blankets. Blanket Octopus An unforgettable sight of a female Blanket Octopus during a blackwater dive. Blanket octopuses use these webs as nets for hunting fish, but they can also unfurl and darken their nets in order to appear much larger than they actually are. Blanket octopuses are named after the distinctive appearance of adult female octopuses which grow long transparent/translucent webs between their dorsal and dorsolateral arms. The female blanket octopus has a disproportionately sized spouse, a cape that would make any superhero jealous, and even rips off the stinging tentacles of the Portuguese Man O’War to use as a nunchuck-like defense strategy and these are just some of the ways the Female Blanket Octopus leaves us starstruck and truly questioning if the aliens are already here.