out of the blue

[octokidwriter]

dear octopusexperts

i have been visiting this forum for a week now in search of ... well, let me explain my presence here first: i am currently doing research for a novel for kids, involving octopuses. it is going to be sheer fiction, but i do like to get facts right. And there are so many of them! not being a scientist in any way (not being a native English speaker also) I do admit i am getting lost in a maze of facts. My questions are very simple and presumably not interesting to people who know a lot. therefore i am seeking a kind knowledgeable person who can help me now and then. Anyhow, i'll be visiting this place regularly to pick up information, but it would be great to have someone in this huge aquarium to refer to in times of need.

thanks

Anna

 

[daddysquoc]

well youve come to the right place! most everyone here can help you out, or knows someone who can.

 

[Lime]

Ask Jean. Jean knows everything lol.

 

[cthulhu77]

We actually have a number of authors on this site, and they will always bend out of their way to help out !

Welcome!

Greg

 

[monty]

I think you can relax, we get a lot of people for whom English isn't a first language (and a lot of native speakers who seem to have even more trouble with it ) and we're very much used to questions that run the spectrum from "completely naive" to "you need a PhD to be able to understand the question well enough to say you don't know." I'm sure you'll find people happy to help you without being an imposition...

 

[octokidwriter]

thanks

i'll probably end up bothering one of you three (or all of you three) with silly questions like: (to give a taste of what is to come is it true that an octopus with more than 90 arms has once been found?
what is btw the best way to get my questions answered? Can i post them publicly? Though they are going to be silly... or can i write private messages to any of you?

 

[Lime]

You can write private messages, but I believe posting them publicly is a better idea. You will get answers from the whole community.

 

[octokidwriter]

hmm, this is going to be a strange new experience...

thanks in advance for wanting to help out

already feeling a little less lost

i wasn't joking about that 90-armed octo btw...think such a species really existed?

 

[gholland]

There have been a couple of octos documented with arm tips branching out of the 8 primary arms. They're not a distinct species, just a random (but fascinating) mutation.

 

[monty]

thanks

i'll probably end up bothering one of you three (or all of you three) with silly questions like: (to give a taste of what is to come is it true that an octopus with more than 90 arms has once been found?
what is btw the best way to get my questions answered? Can i post them publicly? Though they are going to be silly... or can i write private messages to any of you?

I'm with Lime on this, posting them publicly will be both more fun, and get a wider range of answers, and have a lot of eyes checking them for validity.

As far as "90-arms" go, the only living cephalopod that naturally has 90 or so arms is the Nautilus, the last of the shelled cephalopod lineage. No one really knows how many arms the ancient nautiloids and ammonoids had, but there's some suspicion that the ammonoids probably had ten arms... squids, octos, cuttles, and the weird outlier Vampyroteuthis are all based on the ten-arm pattern (octos have lost a pair, but there's some evidence that they once had them.)

There is, though, an unusual mutation of octopuses where the arms branch, see Octopus with branching arms

(there's another pic somewhere, too.) Also, some 9-armed octo was in the news recently, but it was in a sushi restaurant in Japan IIRC, so it wasn't studied scientifically. I suspect extra arms in cephs are a somewhat common developmental effect, like cats with extra toes.

 

[cuttlegirl]

Hope we can help you!

 

[DWhatley]

If you can give an idea of what you want to say in your story (the factual part) and an idea of how it fits with the fantacy, it might help with the answers. Using this single thread for your questions (not posting a new one with each question) might also be helpful when you need to review as well as keeping the ideas in context. Some of us are over enthusiastic when it comes to books about octopuses and their cousins (fiction or non-fiction) so you should get a nice range of replies and some interesting discussion. Please also post when the book publishes as there is likely a native speaker in the crowd.

 

[octokidwriter]

thanks everyone, this is really fun

i'll stick to this thread then for the time being

however, i cannot for the life of me tell you all what i am writing about, i have always been very very superstitious when it comes to books still being written, so it was a huge step already to come to this forum and start asking questions "in public". As soon as it is born (the book), i'll make up for that. but knowing me, it might still take at least a year or more...

here's one q that's been bothering me for a while: why keep octopuses as pets?


thanks again

anna

 

[OB]

An answer from a non-keeper may be less insightful, but I would like to give it a go, regardless...

Octopuses fascinate us because they are fundamentally different from what we've come to expect as "normal". From a biology standpoint (copper rather than iron as oxygen carrier, no internal skeleton, living underwater etc.) as well as from behaviour: The octopus is a solitary animal that regardless of that fact posesses defined social skills: they interact rather enthusiastically with their tank-owners (no one owns another creature's life) and have a certain degree of recognizeable intelligence, as in memory skills and problem solving abilities. I also think that the two eyes in combination with the bulging mantle give off the impression of a human head of sorts, making the actual differences in ontogeny even more striking.

 

[octokidwriter]

I have been wondering too about this "copper as oxygen carrier". Are octo's the only animals with blue blood or are there others? and why blue? why exactly copper? i read that it made them tire out more easily and that they "used" copper because it is found at the bottom of the ocean. does this make sense at all?