The Other 71%

What To Do If You Find A Beached Cetacean

If you are ever out by the coast and are the first to happen upon a stranded or beached whale, dolphin, or porpoise, please take these steps to ensure the animal gets the help they need!

Before anything, call a local rescue or stranding network! A list of these networks for America can be found here. Do this before doing anything else, the faster you can notify professionals to come for help the better.

Do not try to push the animal back into the water! They beached for a reason, and if they are ill or needing medical attention and you push them back into the water, they could re-strand and stress/injure themselves further, or they could go off and eventually die of whatever was ailing them.

Do not try to touch the animal or get close unless necessary. They are large, wild predators and are likely in a certain mode of survival, which could lead to injury for you. It’s best to keep yourself safe and stay far enough back that if the animal were to bite or thrash, you are not in the way. If the animal is in a situation that requires you to get near, do so with care and have volunteers assist you.

Ensure the animal can breathe. If their blowhole is covered or not in a position that allows them full access to air, you may need to flip or adjust the animal. Only do this if you feel comfortable and with the utmost self preservation.

Try to keep the crowd away and quiet. A noisy crowd of barking dogs, yelling adults, and screaming children will only stress and panic the animal more. Keep everyone else at a safe distance and try to keep everyone calm and noise levels down.

Log the time, physical appearance, condition of the animal, and take photos. Any information you can gather while waiting for the rescue team is essential in giving them more information to help the animal.

Try to gather some wet towels and carefully drape them over the animal while keeping as much distance as you can. If the animal is thrashing wildly or acting aversively to any advance, back off immediately and skip this step. It’s not worth risking your safety.

Place a tarp tent over the animal if any beach goers have one nearby. Keeping the animal out of the sun is ideal so they can avoid sunburn. They are not used to being exposed to such high intensity rays for long amounts of time.

Just when you thought octopuses couldn’t get any more fascinating, they do!

A paper published on January 28th, 2016 in the journal Current Biology found that there is more to octopuses changing colors than camouflage or anti-predator behavior. Using close to 53 hours of recorded video and 186 interactions in a heavily octopus-populated area in the waters of Australia, the scientists found that some displays of colors are signals that actually mediate combative interactions with one another. 

( Octopus in foreground turn pales when retreating from confrontation with another octopus, seen standing tall and menacing in the background. Photo by David Scheel)

This is the first study to document the use of signals during aggressive interactions among octopuses.

David Scheel recalls for NPR the first time he observed this behavior: “I took a look fairly early on at one sequence in which one octopus approaches another in a fairly menacing way. He gets all dark, stands up very tall, and the other octopus crouches down and turns very pale. And then, when the approaching octopus persists, the other one flees. And this is immediately followed by the first octopus approaching a third octopus that’s nearby. And the third octopus turns dark and doesn’t crouch down. He just stays where he is, holds his ground.”

Excerpts from the paper:

Interactions in which dark body color by an approaching octopus was matched by similar color in the reacting octopus were more likely to escalate to grappling. 

Darkness in an approaching octopus met by paler color in the reacting octopus accompanied retreat of the paler octopus. Octopuses also displayed on high ground and stood with spread web and elevated mantle, often producing these behaviors in combinations.

(Source: Scheel et al. 2016)

“[An aggressive] octopus will turn very dark, stand in a way that accentuates its size and it will often seek to stand on a higher spot,” explained Professor Godfrey-Smith to the BBC.

The scientists in this research actually dubbed the pose “Nosferatu” because the spread of the octopus’s web was reminiscent of a vampire’s cape, and they looked like Dracula was approaching his prey.

In the end, the color displays ultimately are correlated with the outcome of the interaction. 

(Source: Scheel et al. 2016)

Scientists don’t exactly know why octopuses engaged in such heated and feisty exchanges. “It could be an attempt by one or more animals to control territory, as we saw males excluding males but not females, but this isn’t always the case,” Professor Godfrey-Smith said. 

It had been previously thought that octopuses were mostly solitary creatures, and changes to body color and shape were viewed as tactics to avoid predators or to hide. This study however not only shows a very interesting range of behavior, but also may indicate complex social signaling. 

Octopuses actually have a pretty exciting  and dramatic social life after all.

The video above shows a dark-colored octopus, standing in the Nosferatu pose before attacking another dark-colored octopus, which eventually turns white and retreats. 

Nudibranch @ Raja Ampat

Photo by: @indahs_photography