CREATURE DAY

Tuesday here in Newie and my creature for the creature post is the Mimic Octopus.

This Octopus uses colour matching and shape shifting this cleaver creature avoids the jaws of its predators, it imitates many different creatures including a poisonous flatfish scooting along the sea floor and a lion-fish swimming with its toxic spines erect.

Maybe its most incredible morph, however, is when imitating the venomous banded sea snake. It conceals six of its arms in the sand and raises the other two now z,covered in thick black and beige stripes, in opposite directions to resemble the snake.

The mimic octopus was discovered in 1998 off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia. Most sightings have come from that country, though it's been spotted as far afield as the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

Mimic octopuses reach about 60cm in length and are typically brown and white striped. Mimic octopuses have been observed shifting between impersonations as it crosses the ocean floor to return to its burrow.