As part of the Census of Marine Life, researchers have found the Lucy of the octopus world.  The best part?  It looks like Pearl of Finding Nemo fame.

“You made me ink!“

From the article:

The species could all be traced back to a shallow-water octopus that lived in the Southern Ocean. Today, the creature’s closest living relative (Megaleledone setebos) can still be found in the icy waters around Antarctica.

While we’re on cephalopods.  Here’s a video of a cuttlefish using its active camouflage.

This color-changing function is produced by groups of red, yellow, brown, and black pigmented chromatophores above a layer of reflective iridophores and leucophores, with up to 200 of these specialized pigment cells per square millimeter. The pigmented chromatophores have a sac of pigment and a large membrane that is folded when retracted. There are 6-20 small muscle cells on the sides which can contract to squash the elastic sac into a disc against the skin.

Here’s a photo of a cuttlefish blending in with some yarn:

Spooky how well it blends in with its environment.

Check this video of a mimic octopus in the wild.

Didja see the Labroides wrasse?

These guys can blend into any environment and become almost invisible.  See if you can spot the Mimic Octopus in this picture:

“I Iz hidden.”

Mimic Octopuses (not Octopi) were discovered about 10 years ago in 1998.  Up until then, they were mis-identified as crabs, algae or sea shells.

Although all species of octopus have the ability to change the color and texture of their skin, and many species can blend in with the sea floor and look like rocks, the mimic octopus is the first octopus species ever observed to impersonate other animals

Based on observation, scientists think that the mimic octopus may decide which animal to impersonate based on which predator happens to be nearby. For example, when the octopus was being attacked by damselfishes, scientists observed that the octopus took on the appearance of the banded sea snake, which is a predator of the damselfish. The octopus impersonates the banded sea snake by turning black and yellow, burying six of its arms, and waving its other two arms in opposite directions, so they look like two banded seas snakes.

Here’s a mimic pretending to be a seasnake:

From the description:

David Gallo shows jaw-dropping footage of amazing sea creatures, including a color-shifting cuttlefish, a perfectly camouflaged octopus, and a Times Square’s worth of neon light displays from fish who live in the blackest depths of the ocean.

How smart is the octopus?

Octopuses can learn, they can process complex information in their heads, and they can behave in equally complex ways. But it would be a mistake to try to give octopuses an IQ score. They are not intelligent in the way we are—not because they’re dumb but because their behavior is the product of hundreds of millions of years of evolution under radically different conditions than the ones under which our own brains evolved.

It’s been 20 years since Jim Hansen gave a speech at the US Congress warning about global warming.  How have we done over the last two decades?  Not so good.

The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress must define a course next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation.

Otherwise it will become impractical to constrain atmospheric carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas produced in burning fossil fuels, to a level that prevents the climate system from passing tipping points that lead to disastrous climate changes that spiral dynamically out of humanity’s control.

ReefRelief is protesting oil drilling off the Florida Keys.  Read more on what you can do to help.