Octopus help!?

Question

What colors do octopuses come in?
What size r they?
How big?
They background....(like r they smart)?
What kind of food they eat
and anyother information

PLease Only give in GOOD site!

Answer 1

Link below shows picture
http://ladywildlife.com/animal/giantoctopus1.html


You will find the answers to all of your questions in link below
http://ladywildlife.com/animal/giantoctopus.html
Habits: Breeding:Defenses:Food and Hunting:
Key Facts: Sizes, Breeding, Lifestyle, and Related Species:
Sizes:
Tentacle span: Up to 30 ft.
Weight: Up to 600 lb. Studies indicate a trend toward larger individuals in deeper water.

Breeding:
Sexual maturity: About 1 year. Male matures at a smaller size than female
No. of eggs laid: Up to 100,000
Hatching time: 6 months

Lifestyle:
Habit: Solitary. Lives on the seabed
Diet: Crabs, mollusks, and occasionally fish
Lifespan: Averages 3 years

Related Species: The giant octopus is a distant relative of garden snails and slugs. Closer relatives include other octopuses,
squids, and cuttlefish.
Distribution: Found along the coasts of the northern Pacific, from California to Alaska and west to the Sea of Japan.
Conservation: The giant octopus is vulnerable to pollution. But unlike its edible relative, the common octopus, it is not in direct danger from humans.

Special Adaptations of the Giant Octopus:
Suckers: Suckers are used to rip prey apart and to anchor the octopus to a rock. Sensors surrounding each sucker allow it to reject anything that tastes or feels wrong.
Tentacles: The octopus has eight strong arms. They are capable of pushing and pulling and can grip prey very tightly.
Siphon: The siphon, or funnel, takes in water. The octopus can use it to propel itself through water.
Beak: The giant octopus uses its powerful beak to crush crab shells.

Did You Know:
A giant octopus can live out of water for some time if it stays cool and damp. It may leave the water to search for food on land.
The giant octopus has the largest brain of all the invertebrates. It has a very good memory and can learn quite complex tasks.
Although the octopus has three hearts, they are not very efficient. Because it has poor stamina, the octopus cannot sustain a struggle for a long period of time.
>>>>>>>>>>Good Luck! <<<<<<<<<

Answer 2

How about using Google, Wikipedia, or Ask.com to find the answer.

Answer 3

octopi are grey!
they vary from size as big as ur fist to as big as a semi!
refer to setence above!
no they aren't smart! they have animal instincts...meaning they have naturally developed and passed on hunting tactics and defensive tactics....like ink!!*squirt*
they eat smaller fish!
they have 8 tentacles...thus OCTOpus
they dont have bones!!
they're squishy!!!

Answer 4

they are verrryyyy smart just do some research on the internet

Answer 5

Why don't you use ask jeeves.com. I'm sure it will give you a good website.

See Ya!

Answer 6

The octopus (Greek Ὀκτάπους, 'eight-legs') is a cephalopod of the order Octopoda that inhabits many diverse regions of the ocean, especially coral reefs. The term may also refer to only those creatures in the genus Octopus. In the larger sense, there are 289 different octopus species, which is over one-third of the total number of known cephalopod species.



Physiology
Octopuses are characterized by their eight arms (not tentacles), usually bearing suction cups. These arms are a type of muscular hydrostat. Unlike most other cephalopods, the majority of octopuses — those in the suborder most commonly known, Incirrina — have almost entirely soft bodies with no internal skeleton. They have neither a protective outer shell like the nautilus, nor any vestige of an internal shell or bones, like cuttlefish or squids. A beak, similar in shape to a parrot's beak, is the only hard part of their body. This enables them to squeeze through very narrow slits between underwater rocks, which is very helpful when they are fleeing from morays or other predatory fish. The octopuses in the less familiar Cirrina suborder have two fins and an internal shell, generally lessening their ability to squeeze into small spaces.

Octopuses have a relatively short life span, and some species live for as little as six months. Larger species, such as the North Pacific Giant Octopus, may live for up to five years under suitable circumstances. However, reproduction is a cause of death: males can only live for a few months after mating, and females die shortly after their eggs hatch, for they neglect to eat during the (roughly) one month period spent taking care of their unhatched eggs.

Octopuses have three hearts. Two pump blood through each of the two gills, while the third pumps blood through the body. Octopus blood contains the copper-rich protein hemocyanin for transporting oxygen. Less efficient than the iron-rich hemoglobin of vertebrates, the hemocyanin is dissolved in the plasma instead of being bound in red blood cells and gives the blood a blue color. Octopuses draw water into their mantle cavity where it passes through its gills. As mollusks, octopuses have gills that are finely divided and vascularized outgrowths of either the outer or the inner body surface.


Intelligence

A Big Blue Octopus (Octopus cyanea) observing its surroundingsOctopuses are highly intelligent, probably more intelligent than any other order of invertebrates. The exact extent of their intelligence and learning capability is much debated among biologists,[1][2][3] but maze and problem-solving experiments have shown that they do have both short- and long-term memory. Their short lifespans limit the amount they can ultimately learn. There has been much speculation to the effect that almost all octopus behaviors are independently learned rather than instinct-based, although this remains largely unproven. They learn almost no behaviors from their parents, with whom young octopuses have very little contact.

An octopus has a highly complex nervous system, only part of which is localized in its brain. Two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are found in the nerve cords of its arms, which have a remarkable amount of autonomy. Octopus arms show a wide variety of complex reflex actions arising on at least three different levels of the nervous system. Some octopuses, such as the Mimic Octopus, will move their arms in ways that emulate the movements of other sea creatures.

In laboratory experiments, octopuses can be readily trained to distinguish between different shapes and patterns. They have been reported to practice observational learning,[4] although the validity of these findings is widely contested on a number of grounds.[1][2] Octopuses have also been observed in what some have described as play: repeatedly releasing bottles or toys into a circular current in their aquariums and then catching them.[5] Octopuses often break out of their aquariums and sometimes into others in search of food. They have even boarded fishing boats and opened holds to eat crabs.[3]

In some countries octopuses are on the list of experimental animals on which surgery may not be performed without anesthesia. In the UK, cephalopods such as octopuses are regarded as honorary vertebrates under the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and other cruelty to animals legislation, extending to them protections not normally afforded to invertebrates.[6]

A common belief is that when stressed, an octopus may begin to eat its own arms. However, limited research conducted in this area has revealed that the cause of this abnormal behavior, called autophagy, may be a virus that attacks the octopus's nervous system. Thus this behavior may be more correctly labeled as a neurological disorder.


Defense

An ocellated octopus nestled in a clamshellThree defensive mechanisms are typical of octopuses: ink sacs, camouflage, and autotomising limbs.

Most octopuses can eject a thick blackish ink in a large cloud to aid in escaping from predators. The main colouring agent of the ink is melanin, which is the same chemical that gives humans their hair and skin colour. This ink cloud dulls smell, which is particularly useful for evading predators that are dependent on smell for hunting, such as sharks.

An octopus's camouflage is aided by certain specialized skin cells which can change the apparent color, opacity, and reflectiveness of the epidermis. Chromatophores contain yellow, orange, red, brown, or black pigments; most species have three of these colors, while some have two or four. Other color-changing cells are reflective iridophores, and leucophores (white).[7] This color-changing ability can also be used to communicate with or warn other octopuses. The very venomous blue-ringed octopus becomes bright yellow with blue rings when it is provoked.

When under attack, some octopuses can detach their own limbs, in a similar manner to the way skinks and other lizards detach their tails. The crawling arm serves as a distraction to would-be predators; this ability is also used in mating.

A few species, such as the Mimic Octopus, have a fourth defense mechanism. They can combine their highly flexible bodies with their color changing ability to accurately mimic other, more dangerous animals such as lionfish, sea snakes and eels. They have also been observed changing the texture of their mantle in order to achieve a greater camouflage. The mantle can take on the spiky appearance of seaweed, or the scraggly, bumpy texture of a rock, among other disguises.


Reproduction
When octopuses reproduce, males use a specialized arm called a hectocotylus to insert spermatophores (packets of sperm) into the female's mantle cavity. The hectocotylus, usually the third right arm, detaches from the male during copulation. Males die within a few months after mating. In some species, the female octopus can keep the sperm alive inside her for weeks until her eggs are mature. After they have been fertilized, the female lays about 200,000 eggs (this figure dramatically varies between families, genera, species and also individuals). The female hangs these eggs in strings from the ceiling of her lair, or individually attaches them to the substratum depending on the species. The female cares for the eggs, guarding them against predators, and gently blowing currents of water over them so that they get enough oxygen. The female does not eat during the roughly one-month period spent taking care of the unhatched eggs. At around the time the eggs hatch, the mother dies and the young larval octopuses spend a period of time drifting in clouds of plankton, where they feed on copepods, larval crabs and larval starfish until they are ready to sink down to the bottom of the ocean, where the cycle repeats itself. In some deeper dwelling species, the young do not go through this period. This is a dangerous time for the larval octopuses; as they become part of the plankton cloud they are vulnerable to many plankton eaters.


Sensation

Eye of Octopus vulgarisOctopuses have keen eyesight. Although their slit-shaped pupils might be expected to afflict them with astigmatism, it appears that this is not a problem in the light levels in which an octopus typically hunts. Surprisingly, they do not appear to have color vision, although they can distinguish the polarization of light. Attached to the brain are two special organs, called statocysts, that allow the octopus to sense the orientation of its body relative to horizontal. An autonomic response keeps the octopus's eyes oriented so that the pupil slit is always horizontal.

Octopuses also have an excellent sense of touch. An octopus's suction cups are equipped with chemoreceptors so that the octopus can taste what it is touching. The arms contain tension sensors so that the octopus knows whether its arms are stretched out. However, the octopus has a very poor proprioceptive sense. The tension receptors are not sufficient for the octopus brain to determine the position of the octopus's body or arms. (It is not clear that the octopus brain would be capable of processing the large amount of information that this would require; the flexibility of an octopus's arms is much greater than that of the limbs of vertebrates, which devote large areas of cerebral cortex to the processing of proprioceptive inputs.) As a result, the octopus does not possess stereognosis; that is, it does not form a mental image of the overall shape of the object it is handling. It can detect local texture variations, but cannot integrate the information into a larger picture.


An octopus crawlingThe neurological autonomy of the arms means that the octopus has great difficulty learning about the detailed effects of its motions. The brain may issue a high-level command to the arms, but the nerve cords in the arms execute the details. There is no neurological path for the brain to receive feedback about just how its command was executed by the arms; the only way it knows just what motions were made is by observing the arms visually.


Locomotion
Octopuses move about by crawling or swimming. Their main means of slow travel is crawling, with some swimming. Their only means of fast travel is called jet propulsion. Their fastest movements only occur when provoked by hunger or if in danger. Because the rate at which oxygen is transported to the blood is an estimated 4% in octopuses, it gives them a high disadvantage in the wild for having poor stamina.


Octopuses swim headfirst, with arms trailing behindThey crawl by walking on their arms, usually on many at once, on solid surfaces, while supported in water. In 2005 it was reported that some octopuses can walk on two arms on a solid surface, while at the same time imitating a coconut or a clump of seaweed.[8]

They swim by expelling a jet of water from a contractile mantle, and aiming it via a muscular siphon.


Terminology
According to various sources, there are up to three forms of the plural of octopus: octopuses, octopi and (rare) octopodes. Octopuses is the most common form, but Merriam-Webster and other dictionaries accept octopi as an alternative form. The Oxford English Dictionary lists octopuses, octopi, and octopodes in order of descending frequency of use. The term octopod (either plural octopods and octopodes can be found) is taken from the taxonomic order octopoda but has no classical equivalent. The collective form octopus is usually reserved for animals consumed for food.

Fowler's Modern English Usage states that "the only acceptable plural in English is octopuses", and that octopi is misconceived and octopodes pedantic. Octopi derives from the mistaken notion that octōpūs is a second declension Latin noun, which it is not. Rather, it is (Latinized) Greek, from oktṓpous (ὀκτώπους), gender masculine, whose plural is oktṓpődes (ὀκτώποδες). If the word were native to Latin, it would be octōpēs ('eight-foot') and the plural octōpedes, analogous to centipedes and mīllipedes, as the plural form of pēs ('foot') is pedes. In modern, informal Greek, it is called chtapódi (χταπόδι), gender neuter, with plural form chtapódia (χταπόδια).

Answer 7

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/invertebrates/octopus/Octopuscoloring.shtml
http://nature.ca/notebooks/english/octopus.htm
http://wonderclub.com/Wildlife/primitive/octopus.htm
http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/encanto/octopus/tentacles.htm
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngkids/0410/octopus34.html
http://www.kellytarltons.co.nz/aquarium-attraction-sharks-penguins/103/Octopus.aspx
http://marine.alaskapacific.edu/octopus/factsheet.html
http://www3.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/common-octopus.html
http://complicatedoctopus.com/category/complicated-octopus-facts/
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/octopus
http://www.siamcanadian.com/baby-octopus/general-facts.htm
http://www.expertrating.com/quizzes/Giant-Octopus-Quiz.asp