![]() Endangered Species List, many argue that it should be added, since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs, and it is under stress from decimation of its habitat by logging and suburban encroachment, roads that cut off access to the water which it depends on for spawning, predation by invasive or domestic species such as cats, and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch. The young will spend the first month or so floating through Hood Canal, Admiralty Inlet, and as far as North Puget Sound before eventually moving out of the water and beginning their adult lives.Īlthough the tree octopus is not officially listed on the U.S. The female will guard and care for her eggs until they hatch, refusing even to eat, and usually dying from her selflessness. After the male has deposited his sperm, he returns to the forests, leaving the female to find an aquatic lair in which to attach her strands of egg-clusters. Every year, in the spring, tree octopuses leave their homes in the Olympic National Forest and migrate towards the shore and, eventually, their spawning grounds in Hood Canal. ![]() The reproductive cycle of the tree octopus is still linked to its roots in the waters of Puget Sound, where it is thought to have originated. ![]() While they normally maintain a mottled brown tone to blend in with the background, a small percentage (15% of the total "male" population) may turn to a light pink color when agitated. Although they are not social animals, they display their emotions by changing the color of their skin: red indicates rage, and white, fear. Tree octopuses have eyesight comparable to humans besides allowing them to see their prey and environment, it is key in inter-octopus relations. Reaching out with one of its eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull itself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or to steal an egg from a bird's nest or it might even be examining some object that caught its fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with its dexterous sensory organs, in order to better know it. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. ![]() Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three-dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. With the largest brain-to-body ration for any mollusc, the intelligent and inquisitive tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. 4.1 Organizations fighting to save the Tree Octopus. ![]()
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