Octopus & Cuttlefish

Octopus and Cuttlefish

Along with squid these creatures are members of the species Cephalopod but, unlike squid which are highly pelagic, we frequently see octopus and cuttlefish, and we love them!

What’s wonderful about the octopus is that they are so curious, although a bit shy. But if you approach carefully so as not to scare them and tap gently on the rock you can tempt them to investigate with a tentacle or two – you will find them surprisingly strong! It’s worth keeping a lookout for cracks in the rock filled with small pebbles – this can be an indication of an octopus that has backed into an opening then pulled in pebbles after itself to complete the hideout. Take out one or two of those pebbles and you will likely see a suckered tentacle or arm.

What we also love about both the octopus and cuttlefish is the rapid colour change that they can perform in order to camouflage themselves against their background or to communicate with each other for mating purposes, for example. It is quite common to see this colour change occur as pairs of cuttlefish are swimming along; as the seabed beneath them changes from rock to sand to grass, so too does their colouring.

These Cephalopods have no protective shell; their head has 5 pairs of multi-purpose appendages around the mouth (the word Cephalopod is Greek for head-feet). One is a pair of tentacles that can extend rapidly in length and are important for catching prey. The others are pairs of arms and are used for holding and manipulating the prey.

They are widely regarded as the most intelligent of the invertebrates and certainly have the largest brain:body ratio.

Although most movement is fairly sedate with the use of their arms (and skirt in the case of cuttlefish) they can use their arms and tentacles to perform a rapid jet movement achieving a flight distance of up to 50m. Quite handy if you’ve got a predator on your case!

Most of the octopus we see are of the common brown variety although we are sometimes treated to the white spotted octopus, which is bright orange with, yes you got it, white spots. And the cuttlefish variety that we see is the African cuttlefish.

Rather sadly, the female octopus stops feeding after spawning and dies after the eggs hatch. Nature can be so harsh! Cephalopods are not long-lived creatures, growing and maturing quickly and dying within 1-2 years. Local predators include groupers, pink dentex, dolphins and whales.