{"id":2190780,"date":"2026-04-25T06:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T04:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2190780"},"modified":"2026-04-24T20:25:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T19:25:52","slug":"theyre-2-metres-long-10000-times-heavier-than-the-males-and-can-even-rip-off-the-infamous-portuguese-man-owars-tentacles-and-wield-them-as-weapons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/theyre-2-metres-long-10000-times-heavier-than-the-males-and-can-even-rip-off-the-infamous-portuguese-man-owars-tentacles-and-wield-them-as-weapons\/","title":{"rendered":"They&#8217;re 2 metres long, 10,000 times heavier than the males and can even rip off the infamous Portuguese man o\u2019war&#8217;s tentacles and wield them as weapons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Arms spread to reveal the colourful webbing stretched between them, a female blanket octopus treats us to a spectacular threat display, staring us down with one of her two huge eyes.<\/p>\n<p>At up to 2m in length, female blanket octopuses are at least ten thousand times heavier than the tiny 2cm-long males, which are little more than sperm-delivery pods.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe id=\"261338277\" title=\"This octopus uses man of war tentacles as WEAPONS &#x1f419;&#x1f92f;Blanket Octopus facts #octopus #sea #shorts\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XWieY8xkKGo?feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discoverwildlife.com\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-129157385_7=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-12=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-17=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>It is one of the most extreme size disparities between males and females in the animal kingdom.<\/p>\n<p>These\u00a0cephalopods\u00a0are apparently immune to the venom of the infamous\u00a0Portuguese man o\u2019war\u00a0\u2018jellyfish\u2019 and have been documented detaching their stinging tentacles and wielding them as weapons.<\/p>\n<p><em>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/animal-facts\/blanket-octopus\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article<\/a> by Debbie Graham was first published by Discover Wildlife on 11 April 2026. Lead Image:\u00a0Magnus Lundgren\/Alamy.<\/em><\/p>\n<h2>Help to protect wildlife<\/h2>\n<p><em>Protect wildlife by making a monthly donation as little as $5.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/install-popup-button.js\" id=\"donorbox-popup-button-installer\"> <\/script><a id=\"preview_inline_popup_button\" class=\"dbox-donation-button\" style=\"background: #0dc5dc; color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; display: flex; gap: 8px; width: fit-content; font-size: 16px; border-radius: 5px; line-height: 24px; padding: 8px 24px;\" href=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/focusing-on-wildlife-needs-your-support?default_interval=m&amp;amount=25\" data-reminder-widget-enabled=\"true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">PROTECT WILDLIFE<\/a><script type=\"module\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/widgets.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It only takes a minute!<\/p>\n<hr style=\"border-top: 1px solid white;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Arms spread to reveal the colourful webbing stretched between them, a female blanket octopus treats us to a spectacular threat display, staring us down with one of her two huge eyes. At up to 2m in length, female blanket octopuses are at least ten thousand times heavier than the tiny 2cm-long males, which are little [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2205985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/04\/blanket-octopus-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[4717,11863,12781],"class_list":["post-2190780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-jellyfish","tag-octopuses","tag-portuguese-man-owar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}