Today, we’re going to talk about the beautiful, yetextremely deadly, blue-ringed octopus. These creatures are found on Australia'scoasts.
First, let’s talk about what these octopuseslook like. When they don’t feel threatened, they are a light beige or greyishcolor, and they have fifty to sixty light brown patches on their soft, bumpyskin. However, whenever the blue-ringed octopus feels threatened, theirappearance quickly changes, and those brown patches turn into iridescent bluerings that appear to glow. These are what the blue-ringed octopus is known for.These rings are an example of aposematism, which is a tactic used by animals toshow that they are poisonous or dangerous, in hopes of scaring away theirpredators. Other examples of aposematism would be venomous snakes, poison-dartfrogs, and many many species of insects.
Anyway, the blue-ringed octopus uses aposematismto warn its predators that it is toxic. In fact, the blue-ringed octopus is themost venomous species of octopus. The venom is injected into an animal when theblue-ringed octopus bites you with its beak. When it bites, saliva is released,and inside that saliva is a neurotoxin known as maculotoxin. This toxin waslater found to be identical to tetrodotoxin, which is the stuff that you findin pufferfish and some poisonous frogs. It’s a very dangerous substance, andit’s more than strong enough to kill a person. This toxin is produced bycolonies of bacteria that live in the blue-ringed octopus’s salivary glands.
Though the blue-ringed octopus may be beautiful,if you ever find one, you must remember to avoid it.
For Wild Suzhou, I'm Ciana, thanks for listeningand see you next time.
