Is the ink of the octopus deadly?

Question

Is it venemous or poisonous?

Answer 1

I know of no octopus that has poisonous ink. The primary component of octopus ink is actually melanin - the same pigment that gives human skin its colour. Add to that some chemicals which make it hard for other fish to smell and you have a pretty good subterfuge.

Nor do octopi generally produce huge clouds underwater with their ink as they are occasionally depicted as doing. That would require HUGE amounts of ink to do! Instead, a fleeing octopus tends to emit a small jet and then zip off in a new direction. The resulting cloud tends to look a lot like something the size and shape of an octopus! Any predator taken in by such a decoy is probably going to miss lunch that day.

It does bear mention that some octopi ARE poisonous. The golf-ball-sized blue-ringed octopus, for example, produces a poison which is toxic enough to kill a human being and for which there is no antidote! The poison it makes is not in its ink, but in its saliva. Which, if you think about it, is very consistant with the rest of the animal kingdom - poisonous critters usually want to inflict poison with a bite so it can be introduced into the bloodstream and stop the struggles of potential food or enemies. Octopi have beaks on their underside that they bite with which is a much better way to introduce poison than spraying it randomly around!

Answer 2

Is Octopus Ink Poisonous

Answer 3

Poisonous Octopus

Answer 4

No its not deadly but merely a defence mechanism to avoid being captured or hurt by its attackers. The octopus release the ink in occasions of stress and fear. It is not deadly because its just a thick liquid with similar components of oil. It prevents attackers from seeing and it takes them a while to remove the ink.

Answer 5

This depends on the type of octopus or maybe that released the ink because the ink used of a certain octoupus or squid can be used for culinary recipes. Such as squid ink Pasta.

Answer 6

No, actually it makes quite a tasty pasta sauce, and is often an ingredient when cooking cephalapods (like octopus or squid). As a defense mechanism for the the threatened octopus, it generally just serves to cloud the water and confuse the attacker (or prey).

Bon appetit!

Answer 7

No. In fact, I often ate an octopus stew in a popular restaurant when I lived in the Azores, Portugal that included octopus ink as an ingredient.

Answer 8

I guess I don't know for sure. But I would guess not because what they use it for (I do know this for a fact) is when they are getting chased by a predator of some type, they release the ink as a "smoke cloud" to help them evade the predator.

Answer 9

the ink of an octopus is not possible, however, the tentacles can shock you with deadly venoms

Answer 10

No, it's just an escape mechinism