I think I deserve a refund for all the Scholastic marine life books I bought as a child.
Not only does it turn out that, nope, the tide doesn’t actually go in and out, but apparently octopuses don’t have tentacles, either.
If you’re thinking, “But isn’t that sort of their whole shtick?”, I’m right there with you.
So you can imagine how horrified I was to read on Ocean Conservancy’s site that actually, the hyper-intelligent animals have eight arms.
What? Why?
I know! Apparently, the answer is all in the suckers.
While “Tentacles have suction cups only near the end of the limb,” the site says, arms “Have suction cups the entire length of the limb and can perform finer, more complex actions compared to tentacles.”
The latter describes the anatomy of an octopus, while the former applies to some squid.
In case you think Ocean Conservancy are alone, they’re not. BBC Science Focus Magazine began an article by saying, “How many tentacles does an octopus have? None.”
They also shared that “octopuses tend to reach out to touch things with a preferred front arm and use two rear arms when they go for a walk.”
They add that it’d be a little bit oversimplified to say that octopuses have four arms and two legs, as all eight have a variety of uses ― but it’s certainly far closer to that than I’d thought.
Wait, octopuses “walk”?
Again, I’m right there with you! I thought they’d have ― I don’t know, sort of splurge-swum their way across the sea.
But the Marine Conservation Society says their “legs” are so powerful, they can even walk on land.
“Octopuses can use their tentacles to walk along the beach if they are trapped in a low tide or hunting for prey among the rock pools,” they wrote.
“After eating all the prey in one pool, they can pull themselves out of the water to go and find the next place to hunt.”
If you see an octopus walking on the beach, give it space, they advise (oh, you don’t need to worry about that...).