octopod – Alison Pearce Stevens https://apstevens.com Adventures in nature and science Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:17:00 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 https://i0.wp.com/apstevens.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/cropped-site-icon.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1 octopod – Alison Pearce Stevens https://apstevens.com 32 32 79253410 Scientists discover deep-water octopod https://apstevens.com/scientists-discover-deep-water-octopod/ Sun, 06 Mar 2016 16:52:20 +0000 http://apstevens.com/?p=657 Given how much of the world people have explored, you would think that scientists had discovered all the species out there. But new discoveries continue to happen. Take this “remarkable little octopod” discovered at 5,000 feet below sea level — that’s about 1,000 feet deeper than any octopod of this type has been found before.

 

 

What’s really fascinating about this guy is that it lacks the color-changing cells, or chromatophores, found on many cephalopods (the group that includes squid, octopods, cuttlefish and nautilus), so they can’t change their color to blend in the way other cephalopods do.

Did you know? An octopus is better called an octopod. “Octo” means eight, and “pus” means mouth, but “pod” means foot. These eight-legged critters only have a single mouth!

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