a rift

underthevastblueseas:

that-was-quite-extraordinary:

underthevastblueseas:

A female Blanket Octopus might get to about a meter or 2 (3.3 to 6.6 feet) in length, but her first 2 pairs of legs are extra specially long. Attached to them is a huge span of webbing that is normally hidden away.In times of need, this drapery is unfurled, spread out and left to billow in the water. This makes her look far larger and more threatening than she actually is, hopefully scaring off any predators. If it doesn’t seem to be working so well, bits of her blanket can even detach from the rest to act as a decoy.

Blanket Octopus are immune to the stings of the Portuguese Man o’ War. They can rip off a few of their tentacles and wields them like whips. Poisonous, stinging whips.

source

Holy shit, Mother Nature

Let me tell you about the sad life of a male blanket octopus. The males are just a few centimeters long and don’t get a cool badass blanket. They have a special arm (where the sperm is stored) just for making little blanket octopus babies. When the little guy finds a lady to get jiggy with, what happens is his tentacle penis pretty much just detaches from the dude’s body and climbs into the female. Yup, the tentacle just leaves, no goodbye or anything. With no penis tentacle, the male blanket octopus dies. He never gets to see his 100,000 children.

Moment of silence for all the male blanket octopuses out there.

(via noodle2thedoodle)