Blue Ringed

Blue ringed octopus

The blue ringed octopuses are three octopus species that live in tide pools in the Pacific Ocean, from Japan to Australia mainly around southern New South Wales and SouthAustralia. They are currently recognized as one of the world's most venomous marine animals. Despite their small size and relatively docile nature, they can prove a danger to humans. They can be recognizedby their characteristic blue and black rings and yellowish skin. When the octopus is agitated, the brown patches darken dramatically, and iridescent blue rings or clumps of rings appear and pulsatewithin the maculae. Typically 50-60 blue rings cover the dorsal and lateral surfaces of the mantle. They hunt small crabs, hermit crabs, and shrimp, and may bite attackers, including humans, ifprovoked.
An individual blue-ringed octopus tends to use its dermal chromatophore cells to camouflage itself until provoked, at which point it quickly changes colour, becoming bright yellow with blue ringsor lines.
Their diet typically consists of small crab and shrimp, but they may also feed on fish if they can catch them. They pounce on their prey, paralyze them with venom and use their beaks totear off pieces. They then suck out the flesh from the crustacean's exoskeleton.
The blue-ringed octopus is 12 to 20 cm (5 to 8 inches), but its venom is powerful enough to kill humans. There is noblue-ringed octopus antivenom available.
The octopus produces venom that contains tetrodotoxin, 5-hydroxytryptamine, hyaluronidase, tyramine, histamine, tryptamine, octopamine, taurine, acetylcholine,and dopamine. The major neurotoxin component of blue-ringed octopus venom was originally known as maculotoxin but was later found to be identical to tetrodotoxin, a neurotoxin which is also found inpufferfish and cone snails that is 10,000 times more toxic than cyanide. Tetrodotoxin blocks sodium channels, causing motor paralysis and respiratory arrest within minutes of exposure, leading to...