World Octopus Day

October 8th is World Octopus Day, founded by the online Octopus News Magazine The holiday is intended to draw attention to the diversity of this order of cephalopods and the preservation of the octopus population The date of the celebration is not random - the 8th day of October was chosen by analogy with the number of octopus tentacles ("osm" in Old Slavonic means "eight") People celebrate World Octopus Day in different ways: they visit marine parks and aquariums where these amazing marine animals live, and hold events telling about the inhabitants of the underwater world Fossils discovered by scientists indicate that octopuses lived on Earth 300 million years ago, ie even before dinosaurs Octopuses have survived in nature, having a lot of enemies (sharks, dolphins, eels, seals, fur seals and lions) thanks to the ability to instantly change color, adapting to the environment This camouflage helps them both avoid attacks and get closer to the victim The prey of octopuses are snails, crabs, lobsters and plankton In addition, to disorient the aggressor, mollusks can throw ink into the water or perform a distracting maneuver - throwing off a limb, like a lizard throwing off its tail There are about 500 thousand neurons in the brain and tentacles of octopuses Therefore, their behavior is based not only on instincts Scientists believe that the predator is highly trainable Observations have shown that mollusks famously overcome artificially created obstacles, unscrew lids from jars and demonstrate other miracles of intelligence Few people know that octopuses have a number of amazing characteristics: • for better survival in cold ocean waters, they have blue blood - it contains a lot of copper, not iron; • octopuses have no bones, which allows them to squeeze into the most inaccessible places; • mollusks have 3 hearts - one supplies blood to the internal organs, two others pump it from the gills of the animal;• females can lay up to 150 thousand eggs within 7 days;• the largest octopus, caught in 1945 off the coast of the USA, was 8 m long and weighed 18 kg;• the size of Octopus Wolfi, the smallest species of octopuses, less than 1 cm; • strong emotions affect the color of sea animals - an angry octopus turns red, and turns pale from fear Cephalopods do not live long - from 2 to 4 years In addition to natural enemies, they face another danger - animals often become prey for fishermen World Octopus Day encourages people to start treating octopuses with care, taking care both of them and of the cleanliness of the animals’ habitat