Common Octopus

Fascinating facts about the Common Octopus

• A mantle just 10 inches long can support arms that stretch out to over 3 feet, giving the octopus a long reach for snatching crabs or lobsters at dusk.
• With about 500 million neurons spread through its arms and head, the octopus’s brain power rivals that of a medium-sized dog, letting it solve puzzles like unscrewing jars or navigating mazes. Its intelligence rewrites the rule that only vertebrates can master such tasks.
• When it crawls along the seabed, its oxygen use jumps to 2.4 times the resting rate, and the systemic heart can boost stroke volume up to threefold to meet the demand. This surge reveals a circulatory system that fuels sudden bursts without raising heart rate.
• In water at 20 °C, the gills can extract up to 65 % of available oxygen, while the skin contributes around 41 % at rest – together forming a dual-breathing strategy that lets the octopus thrive where oxygen is scarce. It demonstrates a flexible respiration plan far beyond most fish.
• More than 20 000 tonnes of common octopus are harvested each year by bottom trawls off north-western Africa, a scale that highlights the need to balance human appetite with the species’ short 1–2-year lifespan.

At a glance

About the Common Octopus

The common octopus, Octopus vulgaris, is a striking cephalopod that reaches a mantle length of 25 cm (10 inches) with arms that can extend up to a metre (3.3 ft). Weighing as much as 9 kg (20 lb) and living only one to two years, it roams the shallow, rocky seabeds of the eastern Atlantic, from the Mediterranean and Black seas to the southern coast of England and down to South Africa, while also populating the Azores, Canary and Cape Verde islands, and the Western Atlantic. At dusk the octopus emerges to hunt, using its keen eyesight, rapid colour-changing skin, and a venom-laden beak to crack crabs, lobsters, bivalves and virtually any prey it can seize. Its three-heart circulatory system and copper-rich hemocyanin enable it to extract up to 65 % of dissolved oxygen from water, a feat that fuels its high-energy crawling and occasional jet-propelled swims. Beyond its predatory prowess, O. vulgaris boasts a brain of roughly 500 million neurons, comparable to a dog, granting it the ability to solve puzzles, recognize individual humans, and even cultivate “gardens” of algae, shells and rocks. This intelligence earned it the distinction of being the first invertebrate protected by the UK’s Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986. Its capacity to learn, manipulate objects and display complex behaviours continues to fascinate scientists, hinting at cognitive depths that still lie largely unexplored as the octopus darts away, its mantle shimmering with the colors of the reef,

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