[Octopoda ]
The Octopus: Protection through distraction, intelligence, getting past negative barriers, multifaceted, skilled in many areas.
Symbolism:
The more you slip into the energetic realm of the octopus, the more secrets she will offer up to your consciousness.
The octopus is an extraordinary animal in many ways, but the eyes of this creature are especially incredible. When you consider that they, and their relatives the squid and cuttlefish (collectively known as Cephalopods), are related to mollusks such as clams and snails, this structure is even more amazing.
Looking at the eyes in the photo above you can see they are very similar to mammalian eyes. Although in an octopus the slit-like pupils are horizontal rather than round (like ours) or vertical (like cats). And the way these eyes work, and indeed the parts that make up the eye, are also similar to ours. This is a wonderful example of convergent evolution.
Convergent evolution occurs when two unrelated groups of animals develop similar structures independent of each other. One example is the wings of bats and those of birds. But the similarities between the eyes of mammals and cephalopods are so close it would be like if bats had independently developed feathers and hollow bones. You may wonder how we know the octopus and mammalian eye is truly convergent evolution and not just common traits inherited from common ancestors. This is because the vertebrate/invertebrate lines diverged around 500 million years ago, before either branch had eyes at all.
Photo Via Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evolution_eye.svg)
Let’s talk octopus reproduction! That’s right, we’re learning how this cute little Cephalopod was made.
Male octopuses have a special arm, called a hectocotcylus, to insert spermatophroes (packets of sperm) into the female’s mantle cavity. On most octopus, it’s normally the third right arm. Males typically die within a few months of mating. In some species, females are capable of keeping the sperm alive inside of her for weeks until her eggs mature. After fertilization, the female will lay around 200,000 eggs (but may vary dramatically) and hangs these eggs in strings from the ceiling of her lair, or individually attatches them to substrate, once again depending on the species. She will then take a one month break from hunting in order to guard her eggs from predators, and blow currents of water over her eggs for oxygen. She may even go so far as to ingesting her own arms for sustenance. By the times the eggs hatch, the mother is too weak to fend for herself and will often be attacked by animals, unable to fight back. The baby octopuses will drift in clouds of plankton, feeding on copepods, larval crabs, and larval starfish until they can descend to the ocean bottom, and the cycle will repeat.
Photo credit: Michael Bok
