Cephalopods

Mimic Octopus

Thaumoctopus mimicus · Cephalopod mollusk — family Octopodidae; described in 2005 after its late-1990s discovery on Indonesian muck

Plenty of octopuses match backgrounds; the mimic octopus impersonates other animals. First noticed on Sulawesi muck in the late 1990s, it forages exposed on bare silt in daylight, and its survival act is a repertoire: flattening into a gliding flounder, trailing banded arms like lionfish spines, or hiding all but two arms in a burrow and waving a convincing banded sea krait. Which impression appears seems to track which predator threatens. Longer lists get claimed — jellyfish, anemones, mantis shrimp — and deserve some skepticism; the core three are well documented. The animal itself is slight, brown-and-white banded, arms like linguine, probing worm holes across featureless slopes. Whole dives at black-sand sites are built around finding one. Stay off the silt, follow at arm's length, and let the show be voluntary.