Two Spot Octopus displaying defensive techniques

This is a Two Spot Octopus found at Mesa Lane (Thousand Steps) in Santa Barbara, California. During this dive I was filming a crab while my buddy was off looking at stuff. When I finished I went to find my buddy and he came swimming up to me holding this octopus.

This octopus is known as a Two Spot Octopus for obvious reasons. When it feels threatened it flattens out its body and flashes it's fake eyespots to convince predators that it is much to large to eat. You'll also notice in the video the remarkable color changing abilities octopus have when they use the chromatophores in its skin to change colors to match the color of its environment. Watch as it stops swimming and changes color. You can see how the red patches on its skin matches the surrounding algae and the color of the sandy bottom.

Another defensive technique that Octopus and other cephalopods use is their ink clouds. When I filmed this after the octopus left my buddy's hand I thought I was filming the octopus at first but I was actually filming the ink cloud, then I started filming a second ink cloud thinking that was the octopus. This technique actually works very well in allowing the octopus time to find a place to hide and get away from hungry predators.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Octopus
• Bimaculoides
• Bimaculatus
• two
• spot
• camouflage
• Mesa
• Lane
• Santa
• Barbara
• California

[Cnidarious]

Cephalopods are great.

Its a shame there so hard to care for.

and that there life span is so short. ever seen one of the Giant ones?

i hear they have some pretty interesting behavior.

[Scubaman5000]

I've never seen the giant ones. They live further north. I'm hoping to get up north and do some dives and hopefully see one. Cephalopods are my favorite types of animals to encounter so seeing a Giant Pacific Octopus would be awesome for me.

[Cnidarious]

remember to dry suit it.

The water is freezing up here.

you should see some of the bizarre behaviors the GPO has.

you can find them in the strangest places. by any chance do you have the plumose anemone in California?

[Scubaman5000]

Had to check my book for that one. It appears we have Metridium senile here in So. Cal but they're generally further north from where I am. We also have Metridium farcimen which are very common on a wreck in San Diego called the Yukon. There's a number of videos on Youtube that show that wreck and the large population of that particular anemone on it.

[Squ1shDaBug]

Ahh, very nice specimen. I think it's a bimaculoides not a bimaculatus. At first I though it was a hummelincki judging by it's size and coloration but, the two blue spots didn't match up correctly.

[fugue137]

Beautiful! Why is the camera not sloshing back and forth with the swells?

[shooting4fun]

Pretty!

[mateusgatooctopus9]

How is a camra working under water?

[Alberad08]

Thank you so much for upload!