The Insane Biology of: The Octopus

Octopuses possess the most dynamic camouflage in the animal kingdom, changing color and texture in milliseconds through sophisticated three-layered skin systems with chromatophores, iridophores, and leucophores.

Cephalopods evolved over 500 million years ago before fish, reptiles, or mammals appeared, with octopus lineages losing their protective shells around 140 million years ago, transforming from slow shelled mollusks into nimble soft-bodied predators.

Octopuses possess approximately 500 million neurons (humans have 100 billion), but remarkably only one-third reside in the brain—the majority inhabit the eight arms, enabling arms to “think for themselves” and process information independently.

Octopus intelligence challenges the dominant social intelligence hypothesis, supporting instead the ecological intelligence hypothesis where complex cognition evolved to meet predation, foraging, and competitive pressures rather than social demands.

Octopuses represent alien-like intelligence status—so evolutionarily distant from vertebrates yet competing in raw cognitive ability, demonstrating evolution invented intelligent life twice in completely different ways.

Octopuses can “see with their skin” through photoreceptor genes active in skin cells, enabling color matching despite being colorblind—a paradox resolved by 2015 research showing skin autonomously responds to light.