California has taken a historic step for animal protection by banning octopus farming. Now, the rest of the country must follow. The Oppose Cruelty to Octopuses (OCTO) Act prohibits the farming of octopuses for food and bans the sale of commercially farmed octopus in California. With this law, California joined Washington in recognizing that these […]
Tag: Octopuses
Could Octopuses Become Earth’s Dominant Species After Humans?
It is a strange idea, but also a humbling one. Humans have reshaped the Earth so deeply that it can feel impossible to imagine a future without us. Still, history shows that no species stays on top forever. Life changes, the environment shifts, and nature keeps moving. Oxford professor Tim Coulson believes one surprising contender […]
From the only venomous primate to creatures that can kill you when they’re dead – meet 8 of the world’s weirdest deadly animals
From an animal that’s not actually one animal, to the world’s only venomous primate, there are some unusual deadly animals in the world. Whether they inhabit the world’s oceans, jungles or rivers, there are plenty of deadly animals that are more unusual than average. From species that can inflict harm when they’re no longer living, […]
Weirdest octopuses: meet 8 strange sea creatures, including one that pretends to be a snake and one with a detachable ‘penis’
We know that octopuses are highly intelligent creatures, but there’s still plenty that we haven’t discovered about them. Scientists long-thought that they were solitary animals and were confined to tidal areas – but relatively recent research has disproved this. However, that’s not all, as there are plenty of odd octopus species found around the world.eirdest […]
Octopuses use their arms to sense and respond to microbiomes on the seafloor
From the beginning of life on Earth, microbes, small but influential single-celled organisms, have shaped the environment that animals must adapt to in order to survive. Distinct microbial populations, known as microbiomes, inhabit nearly every surface on Earth. Now scientists have found that octopuses can detect signals from the microbiomes they encounter, revealing one of […]
Scientists extract DNA from ‘vampire squid from hell’ – and uncover 300-million-year-old secret
Half a mile beneath the ocean’s surface, a secretive creature drifts in the dark. It has eight tentacles with glowing tips, and a ‘cloak’ of webbed skin that it can wrap itself up in. It is the vampire squid, and it looks like something out of a nightmare. Scientists must have thought the same: the […]
Octopuses prefer to use different arms for different tasks, scientists find
While some humans find they have two left feet on the dancefloor, octopuses manage to coordinate eight highly flexible arms across a host of behaviours, from foraging to den-building, or moving around the seafloor. Now researchers say they have completed the most comprehensive study of its kind, not only identifying the actions and small motions […]
Trump has opened the deep sea for business, risking fragile environments we know nothing about
When the submarine plunged to about 1,500 meters below sea level, ecologist Jeff Drazen asked the pilots to cut the strobe lights that had been guiding them through the pitch-black waters. For a moment, they continued falling to the sea floor in complete darkness. Then, the creatures of the deep sea began dazzling the crew […]