The blanket octopus has a unique defense mechanism. Rather than doing the usual ink cloud and run technique, the blanket octopus unfurls a giant sheet of webbing that easily breaks apart and wraps around a predator’s face, giving the octopus a chance to escape. Plus, he gets to swim around with a cape on, pretending he’s Super Octopus.
Another strange fact about the blanket octopus: “If the male meets a female, he fills one of his tentacles with sperm and tears it from his body. He gives this sperm-filled tentacle to the female, which she then uses to fertilize her eggs. Afterwards, the female leaves the male, who floats away and dies”.
[Via: Spluch]
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