Mimic Octopus

• GeneralIt mimics the shape and movement of flatfish, sea snakes and lionfish.
• It mimics other animals, and not in a general way: impersonations of as many as fifteen species have been documented, among them the lionfish, the banded sea snake, flatfish, jellyfish, anemones and mantis shrimps. Almost all of them venomous or inedible.
• The impersonation is matched to the threat. When a territorial damselfish attacks it, it switches to a banded sea snake, which is precisely a predator of damselfish. That is what led researchers to describe the mimicry as dynamic and targeted rather than simply aposematic.
• Together with its relative the wunderpus, it is the only animal in which this ability has been documented.
• It does the opposite of almost every other octopus: it forages in broad daylight, on open sand and in full view of hunting fish. It has no shell and nothing to defend it; only the disguise.
• It was first seen in 1998 off Sulawesi. The founding paper was published by Norman, Finn and Tregenza in 2001, and the species was not formally named until 2005.
• It measures about 60 cm in total length, but the mantle is barely 5.8 cm: almost all of it is arms, as thin as a pencil.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - no rigid skeleton (mollusc)

Habitat and environment

Shallow sandy and muddy bottoms

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Thaumoctopus mimicus · Anatomia de Cephalopoda · Wikipedia (Cuttlebone, Gladius) · FAO, terminos tecnicos de cefalopodos

The pins mark the parks and dive sites where its presence is documented.