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Dumbo Octopus — printable fact sheet
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Dumbo Octopus
Grimpoteuthis spp.
Grimpoteuthis is the deepest-living octopus known, recorded below 4,000 m and observed near 7,000 m — depths where no other octopus is found at all. It belongs to the cirrate octopuses, a lineage that abandoned almost everything we associate with the animals: it has no ink sac, …
Did you know?
- Dumbo octopuses can swallow their prey whole, a rare feeding strategy among octopuses.
- A dumbo octopus can flush its whole body pale or dark and can turn its web inside out into a bell shape, though with no predators that hunt by sight the display's purpose is unclear. Hatchlings emerge fully formed and already resemble miniature adults, with the fins present from the start. Most known specimens have come up dead in trawls, and living behaviour is known almost entirely from remotely operated vehicle footage. There are roughly a dozen or more described species in the genus, and new ones are still being found on nearly every deep survey.
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