{Student sandbox}
The group that the blanket octopus belongs to also contains the following octopuses: Argonauts (family Argonautidae), the football octopus (family Ocythoidae) and Haliphron atlanticus (family Alloposidae). All known to show sexual size-dimorphism.[1]
The first record of the blanket octopus was a female discovered by a man named Adam on the coast of Ceará, Brazil in 1937. The second record was by Haimovici et al. in December of 1985 in the Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro. The first blanket octopus caught was an adult female caught by the Palma Island, Cagarras Archipelago in March 2007 and brought to the National Museum of Brazil. [2]
The first male blanket octopus observed alive was fully matured found off the northern Great Barrier Reef, Australia at eight tenth of a meter below the surface. It was two and two fifths centimeters long and weighed one fourth of a gram. It was brought to the Museum Victoria.[1]
There are no known occurrences where the male lives for an extended period of time after mating. Also, no known instant where their has been a male observed that has matted more than once in its life.
The normal colors of the blanket octopus consists of silvery sides and a dark purple/blue dorsal surface when it is not camouflaged or feels threatened. When it is threatened it changes its skins color.[3]. It has been seen with its blanket unfurled as a red, orange, clear, purple, yellow, and green colors. A lot of the time having more than one of these colors. Some have spotted marks along the edges of its blanket. The dominant color of the blanket of the octopus is the same color as the rest of the octopuses body.[4]
Very little is known about the diet of the blanket octopus due to the small number of blanket octopuses captured or observed over the years. The octopuses diet that has been observed from the few specimen available has consisted of: crabs, crayfish, mollusk, scallops, sea snails, small sea turtles, shrimp, and small fish.
The blanket octopus has been observed in the following places in the world: Northern great barrier reef in Australia, near the Palma Islands, off the coast of Ceará in Brazil, and in the Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro.
The blanket octopus is immune to the Portuguese Man-of-War Jellyfish's sting. Like the boxer crab, the males and adolescent females tear off the jellyfishes tentacles to use for their own defense against their predators.[1] Ink is used by octopus to make a thick, murky, cover in the water in order to confuse and escape from predators.[4]
Female blanket octopus increase their physical surface area by spreading out their arms and unfurling their blanket. They are known to move their arms around in the water to wave their blanket around in the water, to look like a larger, more aggressive, animal to scare off predators. The blanket octopus can also change colors, which is a trait known to several species of octopus that is used to confuse predators or as a source of camouflaging into their surrounding.
Digested blanket octopus remains, mainly beaks, were found inside the stomachs of the following marine animals, which were captured by several fishing boats: the yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares), Atlantic Albacore (T. alalunga), Bigeye tuna (T. obesus), Wahoo (Acanthocybium solandri), common dolphinfish (Coryphaena hippurus), swordfish (Xiphias gladius), Atlantic white marlin (Tetrapturus albidus), Longbill spearfish (T. pfluegeri), black marlin, (Makaira nigricans), Atlantic sailfish (Istiophorus albicans), Longnose lancetfish (Alepisaurus ferox), blue shark (Prionace glauca), Night shark (Carcharhinus signatus) and Scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini).[2]
