Did you ever wish you had a built-in blanket? Well, this cephalopod doesn’t need to wish… Meet the Indo-Pacific violet blanket octopus (Tremoctopus gracilis)! While males are tiny, rarely growing more than a few centimeters long, females are more than 10,000 times that size—reaching lengths of up to 6 ft (2 m)! Females also sport massive “blankets,” which are actually webs of skin connecting their dorsal arms. When threatened, they can drop these appendages, distracting predators as they make their escape.
Photo: mbartick, CC BY-NC 4.0, iNaturalist
