As the leaves start to turn it’s time to have a good look through the summer holiday photos! It was a delight to explore the world below the waves on the coast near Marseilles, France, and encounter a highly intelligent animal that’s been around twice as long as primates – the wonderful octopus.
During the day the common octopus (octopus vulgaris) keeps to its den in the rock and with such highly developed camouflage it’s no wonder that most people paddling around waist-deep are oblivious to its presence.
Octopus will take cover during daylight hours, blocking their entrance with shells, rocks and other debris such as this piece of glass.
Octopods evolved 155 million years ago, about the same time as the first mammals – that’s 5 days before today on the ‘Life of Earth in a Year’ timeline.
Their diet is composed mainly of crustaceans, molluscs and shellfish, so this anemone has nothing to fear from them.
But did this Mediterranean Red Sea Star (Echinaster sepositus) lose something to a close encounter with an octopus? It looks more likely that it’s simply one of the minority that doesn’t have 5 legs – they can have 4, 6 or 7.
Octopus rarely prey on fish and certainly wouldn’t stand a chance of catching one of these ‘saupe’ (sea bream).
Here’s another common octopus in its den, with its siphon expelling water that has passed over its gills.
Keeping a close eye on me…
Unfortunately, much of the coastline where I took these photos is unprotected and spearfishing for octopus is common. I was heartbroken to see a diver return with four of these beautiful and intelligent animals in his catch. I’ve been snorkelling here for 20 years and I am however somewhat encouraged that I see more octopus. Perhaps I am ‘getting my eye in’ and know where to look. But, being optimistic by nature, I like to think that despite one of the great apes on this planet having learned to catch something below the waves to put on a barbecue, they are doing relatively well nonetheless.
May we leave them in peace, and be grateful that we have such wonders to observe.
It seems it’s time for a snooze…
Did you know that plans to farm octopuses are afoot?
Plans are in motion for the world’s first industrial octopus farm to open in the port of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Led by Spanish multinational seafood company Nueva Pescanova, farmed octopus products could soon appear on the market. Octopuses are proven to be sentient animals capable of experiencing pain and distress. Research shows that, according to their unique attributes, high-welfare octopus farming would be impossible to achieve. Despite this, the EU has not moved toward preventing octopus farming. Read more about the efforts of Eurogroup for Animals, the largest network of animal welfare organisations, to stop this industry from starting.