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Giant Pacific octopus
Even a big octopus can disappear into a rocky den. In the North Pacific, a pile of empty shells can mark the entrance to one of its hideouts. If an arm reaches out, look for two rows of suckers. They grip surfaces and also let the octopus sense what it touches.
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Common octopus
Around rocky coasts in the northeastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, look for a warty body and stout arms with two rows of suckers. The skin may look gray, yellow-brown, or greenish at different moments. Similar-looking octopuses elsewhere used to be filed under the same name until genetic work helped separate them.
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Ascarosepion pfefferi
Flamboyant cuttlefish
Watch how it gets across the sand. This little cuttlefish uses its arms and the lower part of its body to walk along the bottom, a gait quite different from the hover of a reef squid. Purple, yellow, and red can ripple across its skin as it moves.
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Giant cuttlefish
Giant Australian cuttlefish
Each southern winter, giant cuttlefish gather in shallow water around Point Lowly in South Australia to breed. Their display can change color, shape, and skin texture in quick succession as males compete for mates. The rocky reefs also provide ledges under which females can leave their eggs.
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Humboldt squid
Humboldt squid swim up toward the surface around dusk in parts of the eastern Pacific. When they hunt in groups in darker water, light-producing organs can illuminate the shifting patterns on their skin. The flickering patterns may help the squid signal to one another while feeding, though the meaning of the signals is still being studied.
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Bigfin reef squid
The nearly full-length fins give this Indo-Pacific squid a broad, pear-shaped outline. It visits shallow reefs and seagrass, often moving over the reef at night to feed. The female fixes her jelly-like egg capsules to firm surfaces such as a mangrove root, stone, or coral.
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Argonauta argo
Greater argonaut
The female carries a thin, fluted egg case as she swims in the open ocean. She can collect a pocket of air at the surface and hold it in the case with her arms. As she dives, the air compresses, helping balance her weight. The egg case has earned her the name paper nautilus, though she belongs to the octopuses.
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Common cuttlefish
The narrow fins ripple along both sides of this cuttlefish’s broad mantle. The body can change from stripes to mottled patches, so fin shape is a better starting clue than color. Look for another sign of the animal in shallow waters: clusters of dark egg capsules, which become more transparent as the young develop.
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Sepiola atlantica
Atlantic bobtail squid
This small, rounded animal has two short fins that look like ears. The fins stop well before the ends of the body, unlike the long fringe on a true cuttlefish. It lives in the northeastern Atlantic and can burrow into sand or gravel.
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Caribbean reef octopus
On a tropical western Atlantic reef, a Caribbean reef octopus spends much of the day in a dark den. After dark its long arms and the web connecting them help it hunt around the reef. It can look blue-green with reddish-brown specks, but it also changes color against the reef.
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Southern blue-ringed octopus
On shallow rocky shores and reef flats in southern Australia, this small octopus can look gray or brown at rest. When threatened, the blue rings stand out. Watch from a distance: the rings can be hard to see until the animal is disturbed, and it can deliver a dangerous bite.
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Longfin inshore squid
Longfin squid leave clusters of finger-shaped egg capsules attached to the seafloor. Along the northeastern U.S. coast the adults generally move closer to shore in warmer months and retreat offshore in winter. As a result, the same stretch of coast can have very different squid activity from one season to the next.
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Caribbean reef squid
This squid’s long fins can make it look like a cuttlefish as it hovers over a Caribbean reef. Notice how fast the color changes if a large fish comes close. Gold can show above the eyes, and the middle arms can go pale. An animal retreating toward the bottom may darken until its white stripe disappears.
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Sepioloidea lineolata
Striped pajama squid
The dark stripes running down a pale body make this little Australian cephalopod easy to recognize when it is out. It often disappears into the sand, leaving its eyes visible. Despite its name, it belongs to a family of small cuttlefish relatives called bottletail squids.
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