Longarm octopus (Octopus defilippi)

Date taken: December 14, 2006 at 3:58pm
Dive site: Black Magic, Sangeang Island, Flores Region, Indonesia

The more I go through my octopus images, the more I'm amazed at their breadth in color, size, and camouflage. These are some seriously cool critters. They have three hearts and blue-green blood (the oxygen-carrying molecule in their blood is copper whereas ours is iron). They're also one of the most intelligent of animals as their brain-to-body ratio is the largest of all invertebrates. And, octopus arms can be given a task (get that food) and then their arms can decide how to accomplish the task, essentially acting on their own.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
Now, back to the longarm octopus. It's not overly common but we've been fortunate to see a few. This is my very first encounter - way back in 2006 - on the volcanic island of Sangeang. An incredible spot; I remembered encountering an earthquake while we were diving there. Most of us thought a boat was overhead but it was the earth rumbling from the earthquake. To this day I still remember all of the divers being concerned that a boat was coming really close (we weren't all that deep). But, when we got back to our liveaboard (the Pelagian), they said - did you feel it? Wow, what an amazing experience. Oh, and we saw a longarm octopus! ;-)
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Finally, the best part, in logging this image, I decided to see if there was any information about an earthquake that day (remember, I'm also a data person). Sure enough, I found an earthquake of 4.6 logged in the "Flores region, Indonesia" at 7:28:20 UTC which would have been 3:28PM local time. I remembered the earthquake being there but I didn't remember the exact dive. And, coincidentally, it was THIS dive!


My iNaturalist observation: http://www.inaturalist.org/observations/5179782