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The Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus


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Have any of you up in the Northwest seen this thing on your camping trips? It sounds really cool. I would love to see one before they become extinct.

 

The Pacific Northwest tree octopus (Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.

 

An intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)

 

Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it.

 

Although the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment; building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning; predation by foreign species such as house cats; and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch. What few that make it to the Canal are further hampered in their reproduction by the growing problem of pollution from farming and residential run-off. Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory.

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Wait a minute John!

 

The tree octopus is alive and well in the Hoh Rainforest of Washington. It has been known to drop onto unsuspecting hikers from its tree perch, attach to their head and probe the skull with one of its tentacles. The park service issues special helmets to wear that seem to repel the creatures, most of the time. These tree octopi are known to be voracious predators, able to issue a high pitch blood curdling scream that sends all other creatures into a panic flight. Missing hikers up to recently were thought to be victims of a Sasquatch but now we know it is the dreaded tree octopi who is responsible.

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That is just so........creepy!

I swear i heard tenticleish sucking and sninewy noises through the door while standing outsside the SE's office back when I was turning in some adult applications to the registrar a month ago.

 

And I do remeber the DE and DC once saying our Council SE came form Washington or Oregon state! :)

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John, John, John

 

All you need to do is reference any book on Cryptozoology and you will find the critter listed with a complete life history. I think Scientific American ran an article about them a couple of years back. Don't be such a skeptic John, lol.

 

Ed: If you add tomato sauce to your receipe they taste just like Eggplant Parmisian, mmmmmm good.

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