Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory. What few that make it to the Canal are further hampered in their reproduction by the growing problem of pollution from farming and residential run-off. The reasons for this dire situation include: decimation of habitat by logging and suburban encroachment building of roads that cut off access to the water which it needs for spawning predation by foreign species such as house cats and booming populations of its natural predators, including the bald eagle and sasquatch. Part of what has haunted Internet users about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is that the species is said to be endangered, and that prompt action is needed to preserve it from extinction:Īlthough the tree octopus is not officially listed on the Endangered Species List, we feel that it should be added since its numbers are at a critically low level for its breeding needs. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests.
#OCTOPUS NATURAL PREDATORS SKIN#
Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.Īn intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment.
These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. The Pacific Northwest tree octopus ( Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America. Since 1998, unsuspecting internet users have been haunted by a terrestrial cephalopod known as the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, a unique amphibious octopus species that dwells in the forests of the Pacific Northwest:
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