Do you believe in magic?
This octopus may not be using sorcery for his performances, but he has mastered the art of deception.
At first glance, his zebra-striped body reflects that of any ordinary octopus. But, faster than most eyes can follow, he morphs his limbs into the shape of nearly any fellow ocean creature, mimicking their body structure and movement.
Cleverly named the Indonesian mimic octopus, he has been dubbed the most intelligent octopus because, like a ghost, he can practically vanish from a predator’s view by camouflaging himself in any environment.
If he feels threatened, he’ll pull his body into a hole, only exposing two tentacles and moving them in a manner, mirroring the moves of a poisonous banded sea snake with deadly accuracy.
Or he’ll pull his arms back behind his body and hover above the ocean floor like the banded sole, a poisonous, flat fish.
“The first time I saw it, I was blown away. You couldn’t get a more spectacular animal,” recalls biologist Mark Norman, the first scientist to study the species. “Sometimes it’s hard when you watch a mimic octopus doing what it does to interpret what’s going on. It’s a bit like looking at ink spots in a psychiatrist’s office.”
And just like ink spots, many of the mimic’s transformations are still left to biologists’ imaginations, leaving them in heated debates over what they believe it could be.
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