Free Sea Monsters by Mary Pope Osborne Page A

ears!
Octopuses
    There are many different kinds of octopuses in oceans around the world. Octopuses come in all sizes. The largest are thegiant Pacific octopuses. Their arms grow to be fourteen to sixteen feet long.
    Octopus comes from a Greek word that means “eight-footed.”

    Unlikesquids, octopuses do not havetentacles. They have eight arms with two rows of suckers on each arm. Each sucker has a taste bud on it. The arms can move in any direction. Octopuses taste whatever they touch. If they lose an arm, that’s no problem—they will grow another!
    Most of the time, octopuses crawl or walk over the ocean floor. But just likesquids, they can move quickly by shooting water from their mantle.

Big Brains
    Some octopuses look dangerous. Actually, most are very shy. They seem to have their own personalities. They also seem to be curious. Sometimes they will touch divers in a gentle way, almost as if they were exploring or tasting them.
    Wait! There is one dangerous octopus—the blue-ringed octopus. Its poison will kill a human in seconds! It’s only as big as an egg!
    Octopuses have large brains shaped like doughnuts. Their brains wrap around their throats. They are as smart as dogs!
    One night at theSeattle Aquarium, an octopus crawled out of its tank. It slipped into other tanks and ate some fish. Then it went back home. The next morning, the octopus’s keeper found a wet trail on the floor.

    Some octopuses can unscrew caps from bottles. An octopus namedFrida lived ina German zoo. By watching her keepers, Frida learned to open a can of shrimp. She even put on a “can opening” show for visitors.
    Some octopuses seem to play in the bubbles coming from air tubes in their tanks. One octopus spread her mantle and “surfed” on the tide of bubbles!
Making a Home
    Octopuses live in dens under rocks or in cracks on the ocean floor. For protection, they pile rocks outside the openings.
    One scientist watched an octopus catch some fish. Before eating, the octopus shoved rocks up in front of itself to make a fort. Then it settled down to eat.
    Octopuses lay eggs in their dens and tend them for up to six months until theyhatch. Thegiant Pacific octopus lays over 57,000 eggs! Each egg is the size of a grain of rice. Out of all these eggs, only a few will survive.
    The female giant Pacific octopus lives from three to five years and dies shortly after her eggs hatch.
Self-Defense
    Octopuses trick their enemies by quickly changing their skin color. They turn the same color as the background. When an animal’s skin matches its background, we say it is using
camouflage
(KAA-muh-flahj).
    When octopuses are in danger, they shoot a stream of black ink into the water. The ink clouds up the water. It stings predators’ eyes and confuses their sense of smell. The octopus turns white and slips away. The predator thinks it is still hiding in the cloud of ink.
Night Hunters
    Octopuses are
nocturnal
(nok-TUR-null) hunters. This means they mainly hunt at night.

    Octopuses eat fish, lobsters, clams, snails, crabs, turtles, shrimp, and scallops. If an animal has a hard shell, the octopus bites it with its beak to try and open it. Sometimes it will bite right through theshell. Then the octopus shoots out a poison that stuns its prey. Soon the muscle that holds the shell together dissolves, and the octopus can tear it apart.

Mystery at the Aquarium
    At theSeattle Aquarium,sandsharks lived in a large tank with other animals. There was one problem. Their keepers kept finding the sharks’ dead bodies at the bottom of the tank. No one could figure out why. To solve the mystery, they put a video camera in the tank.
    The camera showed a shark swimming around. Suddenly agiant Pacific octopus attacked from behind a rock. The octopus wrapped its arms around the shark and held it in a deadly grip. Even though the shark struggled, it was no use. The next day, there was another dead shark in the tank.
    I guess sharks and giant Pacific octopuses don’t