Octopus Quotes

“The longest octopus lifespan is three to four years, and most of the smaller octopuses die after about six months to a year.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“... the researcher's lament: find the answer to one question and it raises two or three more.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“the plankton in the oceans is immeasurably important for our survival.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“Second, a huge part of plankton is made up of plants or other organisms that have chlorophyll and produce their own food. As a side effect of this process, the oceans produce 50 percent of the oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere, 95 percent of which comes from phytoplankton and 5 percent from bigger algae (kelp and seaweed) or the few marine vascular plants that live near shore.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“Terrestrial insects represent the most species (over a million have been described), but there are more copepods, small weak-swimming crustaceans, in the ocean than any other animal on earth.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“Animals and plants living in the plankton are the most important organisms in the ocean, but they are neither the most visible, the best known, the most highly beloved, nor the most feared.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“The word “plankton” is derived from the Greek root word that means free floating or wandering. The term is applied to any plant or animal that is unattached and floating in the surface waters of the ocean as well as to any weak, swimming animal that cannot swim against the ocean’s currents.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“One of the most deadly marine animals is the blue-ringed octopus (Hapalochlaena maculosa) of Australia; its venom can be fatal to humans (see plate 3).”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“They can make half of the body pale and the other half dark (see plate 2). And when an octopus is finished matching its background and lifts off to swim away, it can put on a striped pattern, making it harder for a predator to track it. If all else fails, an octopus can squirt out a cloud of ink so the predator loses sight of it.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate

“Octopuses can change what they look like in less than 30 milliseconds by expanding tiny pigment sacs in the skin, chromatophores. They can go from dark to pale, plain to patterned, rough to smooth, and a clumped shape to an elongated form. They change their appearance mostly to hide from predators, camouflaging to match the colors and the patterns of their background.”
― Jennifer A. Mather, Octopus: The Ocean's Intelligent Invertebrate