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In times of covid 19, quarantines, various stages and pandemics, we too have resumed filming and photographing the various marine species that populate the Mediterranean Sea and beyond. And to start again in beauty we publish the meeting with a beautiful and big octopus met during a storm in this gloomy June in a few meters of depth. Polpo Piovra Octopus vulgaris molluschi intotheblue.it
Octopus vulgaris Polpo intotheblue.it
It is not at all easy to identify an octopus (Octopus vulgaris) by swimming on the surface, both because it takes advantage of its incomparable camouflage qualities making it practically one with the bottom and therefore practically invisible, and because during the day it spends most of its time in the den or sheltered between the coves of the rocks lurking trying to catch whatever passes.
We therefore need to look for some signs, such as: “dust” left in suspension in the water (as in our case), or locate its hiding place by looking for white stones, shells, colored stones, carcasses of shellfish carapace, such as crabs and spider crabs, shards of green or blue colored bottles; that the octopus arranges with methodical expertise around its lair (the so-called octopus garden). The reason for this behavior has not yet been understood but it seems that octopuses have fun surrounding themselves with white or colored, or at least unusual, objects such as leads lost by fishermen, so as to “decorate and document” the environment in which they live and hunt. Polpo Piovra Octopus vulgaris molluschi intotheblue.it
Octopus vulgaris Polpo intotheblue.it
Another way is to look for the Serranus scriba motionless on the bottom that seems to look at a fixed object (the octopus). An Elban and Livorno saying speeks so: “the perch (serranus scriba) points the octopus!” In the video we see precisely several specimens that follow the meeting, even when our octopus decides to flee disturbed by the presence of the diver.
https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_vulgaris
