8 Octopus Facts (one for each arm)

There's absolutely no telling how many moms and dads have reached a point during this holiday season when they've thought, "I can't do everything at once. I'm not an octopus, y'know!" Well, having eight arms might sound like fun, but there's more to being an octopus than spitting out ink and attending Detroit Red Wings games. Here are 8 facts about these fascinating aquatic creatures that you may not have known. Enjoy!

1. All varieties of octopus are venomous.

2. A female octopus, known as a hen, may lay 100 thousand eggs...

...over its one-to-two-week fertile period. The transparent eggs are protected by the mother in the octopus' lair for several weeks. In most species, the eggs hatch, and the larval octopi swim for the surface where they may remain for a month or more. The vast majority of them die during this period. Weather and turbulent water get many of them, while others are swallowed up along with plankton by larger sea creatures.

3. An octopus' "ink" serves three important purposes.

Most - but not all - octopus species come equipped with an "ink sac" that spews out a stream of dark liquid into the water when the creature is threatened. When frightened, an octopus often "swallows" water with its body and ejects it forcefully. This not only propels the animal away from the danger, but also forces out a trail of "ink." This ink, which may be red, brown, or black, is made of melanin, the same dark pigment that colors human skin and hair. The ink's effects are three-fold: First, the initial "jet" of ink visually distracts, confuses, and perhaps even frightens the predator. Secondly, it may interfere with the predator's sense of smell or sight. And third, once dispersed, the ink clouds the water to help give the octopus time to escape.

4. An octopus' suckers are arranged in two rows down each arm

Some species have more suckers than others. And while some species grow a standard number of suckers on each arm by the time they become adults, the number of suckers on the arms of other species may vary. In some cases, female octopi have more suckers than the men, but only because of what "makes the male the male." Read on.

5. One arm of a male octopus is, well, special.

The third right arm, to be exact. At the tip of this "hectocotylus" arm is the ligula, which serves as its reproductive organ. In some species, the arm is visibly different since it has fewer suckers than the other seven arms. When a male fertilizes a female's eggs, she doesn't necessarily lay them right away. She may hold them for days or weeks before she feels ready to do so.

6. An octopus sees the same thing upside down as right-side up.

Oddly, an octopus' eyes have horizontal pupils (in direct contrast to felines, whose eyes have vertical pupils). What's even more unusual is that the octopus' eyes remain at the same orientation regardless of the creature's position. So if it turns on its side or even upside down, the gaze of the eyes remain fixed in relation to the horizon.

7. Octopi don't like the spotlight.

Octopi like to keep hidden away. They'll usually find a cave or a formation in the rocks that allows them to remain secluded, but smaller octopi may hide inside a clamshell. They can actually crawl inside and use their suckers to pull the shell closed. Once the creatures get larger, however, they find clamshells are more interesting because they tend to include a tasty clam. A hungry octopus may perform any of a number of steps to open a clamshell. It may drill into the shell using its beak, it may use digestive juices to soften up the shell to break inside, or it may use its suckers and arms to pull the shell apart.

8. An octopus may also eat its own.

A hungry adult octopus isn't shy about consuming young octopi. After all, the smaller creatures can't put up much of a fight.

What's more, a study published in the March 2008 edition of Marine and Freshwater Behaviour and Physiology describes a female octopus that attacked, suffocated, and spent two days eating a male who'd just mated with her 13 times over a 3.5-hour period. And you thought your significant other was needy...

Happy holidays, everyone!