How Do Blue-Ringed Octopuses Work?

The tiny, strikingly beautiful blue-ringed octopus is also the ocean's deadliest. Learn how they work in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/marine-life/blue-ringed-octopus.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
brain Stuff, Lauren Bolga Bam here. Don't let the beauty
or size of the blue ringed octopus fool you. With
bright yellow skin patterned with small blue rings that intensify
when it's threatened or under stress. The body of the

(00:22):
tiny octopus doesn't get much bigger than a golf ball
and can be as small as a penny, but this
octopus is extremely venomous. They're native to the Pacific Ocean
from Australia and Indonesia to the Philippines, Japan, and South Korea.
They live in coral reefs and tide pools, and when
they're not out hunting for food or looking for a mate,

(00:43):
they hide in crevices or shells. They generally eat small
crustaceans such as crabs and shrimp, and can live for
about two years. They were also a recurring symbol in
James Bond film Octopusy. The partitular character Octopusy, named for
her father's pet blue ringed octopus, led the Octopus Cult
in the film. The animal is also the symbol of

(01:06):
the organization, and all of its members had a blue
ringed octopus tattooed on their bottom, but fictional phase aside.
The blue ringed octopus is in fact not one single species.
There are two species known as blue ringed octopuses, the
greater blue ringed octopus and the southern or lesser blue
ringed octopus. For the article this episode is based on

(01:28):
How Stuff Works, spoke with Peter Morse, a marine zoologist
at James Cooke University in North Queensland, Australia, who studies
these octopuses and in particular they're mating habits. He says
that one of the main differences between the two species
of blue ringed octopus is how they reproduce. The greater
blue ringed octopuses, along with living longer and generally growing

(01:49):
a little larger, have a planktonic larval phase, meaning they
start off life as plankton before growing into the octopuses
we know. This helps them disperse much farther, making their
range wider and their population larger. The southern blue ringed octopus,
on the other hand, hatches many adults more said they

(02:10):
can only get as far as they can crawl in
a lifetime. This means that there's more inbreeding among this
species Aside from its striking coloring, what the blue ringed
octopus is most famous form is its highly toxic venom,
which is a thousand times more powerful and cyanide, and
each octopus has enough venom to kill more than twenty

(02:30):
humans within minutes. The deadly venom is a powerful neurotoxin
called to trototoxin, the same venom found in pufferfish. While
their bite may be very toxic, a blue ringed octopuses
are generally not a danger to humans. They usually won't
bite unless provoked. But what happens if a person does
get bitten. The venom lasts between twelve and forty hours,

(02:53):
depending on the size of the person and how much
venom they get from the bite. The venom is a
post synaptic walker, which means it blocks some neurotransmitters or
nerve signals in the body. This only affects smooth muscles,
so the person would go limp with what's called flaccid paralysis,
and while it doesn't affect the heart, it does hit

(03:14):
the diaphragm, so the person would stop breathing. This happens
within minutes of a bite. Other signs of flaccid paralysis
could be nausea, blurred vision, or difficulty swallowing. And the
bad news is that there's no anti venom available, so
emergency care would be required immediately. More said, because they're

(03:34):
nocturnal and they're very shy, and they give plenty of
warning as well, you really would have to be very
stubborn to get bitten. The venom is very potent and
there isn't an anti venom, but the venom does wear off,
so if the bitten person could get life saving techniques
during that time, they could be okay. The good news
is that there are only a few bites to humans

(03:56):
every year, and there have been only three known deaths
from their bites. That's likely because blue ringed octopuses mostly
use their venom to hunt and eat. When they're young,
they eat very small shrimp, and as they get older
and bigger, they take down crabs and small prawns to feed.
They use their venom in a couple of ways. Of first,

(04:16):
they might jump on the back of their prey and
crack the shell with their beak, then inject the venom
directly into the wound, or they might release a cloud
of venom into the water near the prey so that
the prey would take it in through their gills. Crabs,
for example, have an open circulatory system, so the venom
goes through their body pretty quickly and they go limp.

(04:37):
A blue ringed octopus is generally feed on crustaceans that
are equal to or smaller than the size of their
own heads. More said, even though they have venom, they
usually don't take too many risks because a large crab
can still do some damage. Anything bigger is probably not
worth it for them. One mystery of the blue ringed octopus,

(04:57):
according to Morse, is exactly how oh it gets its
venom and when. We do know that the octopuses don't
produce the venom themselves. Instead, it's produced by bacteria in
their salivary glands. However, what's still not clear is where
those bacteria come from or how the venom is passed
from parent to child, as even larva in eggs produce

(05:18):
the venom. I'm Moore said, we really don't know if
you were to keep the octopuses in captivity, if they
would need to be exposed to something or eat something
to maintain their venom. But as long as they are
producing venom, they will remain one of the deadliest animals
in the ocean. Today's episode is based on the article

(05:43):
the tiny blue ringed octopus is the Ocean's Deadliest on
house to farks dot com, written by Stephanie Parker. Brain
Stuff is production of iHeart Radio in partnership with hous
to fworks dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Clay.
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