The day octopus, Octopus cyanea, in a tank in the laboratory

A day octopus, Octopus cyanea, sits on top of a status of a shisa, a guardian lion from Okinawan folklore.

Octopuses are mollusks, a large evolutionary group to which slugs and snails also belong. Their complex brains, and those of other closely-related cephalopods, like squid and cuttlefish, have evolved separately from vertebrates, and so octopuses are often referred to as alien-like. Here, a day octopus (Octopus cyanea) poses with a Shisa, a creature from Okinawan folklore.

Octopuses are mollusks, a large evolutionary group to which slugs and snails also belong. Their complex brains, and those of other closely-related cephalopods, like squid and cuttlefish, have evolved separately from vertebrates, and so octopuses are often referred to as alien-like. Here, a day octopus (Octopus cyanea) poses with a Shisa, a creature from Okinawan folklore.

Date:
23 February 2023
Credit:
Michael Kuba

Copyright OIST (Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, 沖縄科学技術大学院大学). Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

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