Range: Cosmopolitan Habitat: Deep ocean waters Size: About 8 inches (20cm) long Diet: Crustaceans, copepods, worms, and molluscs Threats: Marine mammals and sharks Life span: Unknown

Transcript:

Today on Animal Fact Files, we’re talking about dumbo octopuses. For more facts, be sure to subscribe. Thank you to Karasu Yaiba for today’s suggestion! These guys have a couple different common names such as flapjack octopus, umbrella octopus, and dumbo octopus, but I’m fairly certain most people know them as dumbo octopuses so we’re gonna go with that.

Although these cuties seem to be well-known by the general public thanks to internet culture, they’re actually pretty rare to see in real-life. That’s because they’re found almost exclusively at depths we can only reach by remote operated vehicles. Dumbo octopuses spend their days either hanging out at the bottom of the ocean or drifting through the open parts of it. They get their common name from their flappy appendages that closely resemble the Disney character by the same name with abnormally large ears. In the case of the dumbo octopus, however, these protrusions aren’t ears, but fins. Dumbo octopuses may flap these fins as a means of locomotion through their watery habitat. They may also move by expanding and contracting their tentacles, an act which can give them an umbrella like appearance with tentacles fully extended.

Dumbo octopuses are like other octopuses in that they have eight arms, but they also possess a web of skin and an internal cartilaginous shell that’s absent in the octopuses with which we humans may be more familiar. Dumbo octopuses also lack an ink sac - a trait that kind of makes sense considered the pitch black of the ocean zones they inhabit. It’s not like a puff of black is going to make the black look more black.

Dumbo octopuses are found throughout the all the world’s oceans, and, probably at least in part due to their deep water environment, are gelatinous in form with some species appearing almost flat. For defense, dumbo octopuses may balloon up to make themselves seem larger than they actually are, though some species can get fairly large! They are eaten by deep diving animals such as sharks and marine mammals. I dunno, they seem too cute to eat in my opinion - though predators of the natural world don’t generally seem to take “cuteness” as a determining factor for food...

Dumbo octopuses in turn eat crustaceans, copepods, worms, and molluscs which they likely consume whole. The tentacles of a dumbo octopus are equipped with a single row of suckers that are surrounded on each side by hair-like structures called cirri. It’s thought these structures help to transport food particles to the octopus’s mouth which is located on the underside of its mantle, or the part that sort of looks like the octopus’s head. A dumbo octopus usually has large eyes, and they’re thought to have decent vision.

The mating behavior and life cycle of dumbo octopuses is generally unknown, but in some species the males do have larger suckers than females. It’s also been noted that females seem to continuously have eggs developing within them at different stages of maturation. Females are able to store sperm, which is transferred to them via a spermatophore, and reproduce at optimal times. The eggs are hard and laid individually on surfaces such as rocks or shells. How long they might take to hatch and even how long these creatures live is still a mystery - though many other octopus species usually have rather short lifespans.

For more facts on dumbo octopuses, check out the links in the description. Give a thumbs up for octopuses, and thank you for watching Animal Fact Files!