Skip to comments.Help save the endangered Pacific Northwest tree octopus from extinction!
Posted on 04/01/2013 2:34:22 AM PDT by grundle
Rare photo of the elusive tree octopus
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. Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm. 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. 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.
An 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. 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. The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. (Some evolutionary theorists suppose that "arboreal adaptation" is what laid the groundwork in primates for the evolution of the human mind.)
Reaching out with one of her eight arms, each covered in sensitive suckers, a tree octopus might grab a branch to pull herself along in a form of locomotion called tentaculation; or she might be preparing to strike at an insect or small vertebrate, such as a frog or rodent, or steal an egg from a bird's nest; or she might even be examining some object that caught her fancy, instinctively desiring to manipulate it with her dexterous limbs (really deserving the title "sensory organs" more than mere "limbs",) in order to better know it.
Tree octopuses have eyesight comparable to humans. Besides allowing them to see their prey and environment, it helps them in inter-octopus relations. Although they are not social animals like us, they display to one-another their emotions through their ability to change the color of their skin: red indicates anger, white fear, while they normally maintain a mottled brown tone to blend in with the background.
The reproductive cycle of the tree octopus is still linked to its roots in the waters of the Puget Sound from where it is thought to have originated. Every year, in Spring, tree octopuses leave their homes in the Olympic National Forest and migrate towards the shore and, eventually, their spawning grounds in Hood Canal. There, they congregate (the only real social time in their lives,) and find mates. After the male has deposited his sperm, he returns to the forests, leaving the female to find an aquatic lair in which to attach her strands of egg-clusters. The female will guard and care for her eggs until they hatch, refusing even to eat, and usually dying from her selflessness. The young will spend the first month or so floating through Hood Canal, Admiralty Inlet, and as far as North Puget Sound before eventually moving out of the water and beginning their adult lives. Why It's Endangered
Although 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. 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. 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. Unless immediate action is taken to protect this species and its habitat, the Pacific Northwest tree octopus will be but a memory.
The possibility of Pacific Northwest tree octopus extinction is not an unwarranted fear. Other tree octopus species -- including the Douglas octopus and the red-ringed madrona sucker -- were once abundant throughout the Cascadia region, but have since gone extinct because of threats similar to those faced by paxarbolis, as well as overharvesting by the now-illegal tree octopus trade.
The history of the tree octopus trade is a sad one. Their voracious appetite for bird plumes having exhausted all the worthy species of that family, the fashionistas moved on to cephalopodic accoutrements during the early 20th Century. Tree octopuses became prized by the fashion industry as ornamental decorations for hats, leading greedy trappers to wipe out whole populations to feed the vanity of the fashionable rich. While fortunately this practice has been outlawed, its effects still reverberate today as these millinery deprivations brought tree octopus numbers below the critical point where even minor environmental change could cause disaster.
Tree Octopus hat from 1923
How You Can Help
Here are a few things that you can do to help save the Pacific Northwest tree octopus:
Write your representatives to let them know that you are concerned and that you feel the tree octopus should be included on the Endangered Species List and given special protection.
Help build awareness of the tree octopus by telling your friends and co-workers.
Place a tentacle ribbon on your website.
Participate in tree octopus awareness marches. You can demonstrate their plight during the march by having your friends dress up as tree octopuses while you attack them in a lumberjack costume.
Pamphlet your neighborhood. Tentacle ribbons make excellent doorknob hangers.
Join and donate to an organization committed to conservation, such as Greenpeas.
Boycott companies that use non-tree-octopus-safe wood harvesting practices.
Sign an online petition! Nothing activates activity like an Internet petition.
*Nods sagely* uh huh....
Fits right in with “get me a left handed wrench too” or a “bucket of sparks” too.
I’ll only help save it if it’s a relative of Cthulhu.
Is that like the monkeytailed ring-eyed raccoon starfish? So prevelant on the eastern seaboard, from Maine to the Gulf of Mexico. Just wonderin’, ya know.
Jezz, this story has been around since the early 90s; I remember writing about it at the time.
Happy April first to you too
A tree octopus bit my sister.
It tastes like spotted owl, er, chicken.
An Internet classic.
Also home to the definitive tinfoil hat construction page. I used to have this URL memorized. Let’s see if I still do.
Yep, still works!
I use this to teach my students the concept of “valid sources” for research. :)
Obvious 4/1 post. I can handle these as they are so blatant.
It’s the articles about the regime that to all outward appearances must be a joke, till you find out it is business as usual for zer0 and his clown troop...these are the REAL April fool joke 365 days a year into the 5th miserable year.
This is what, the 15th year for this hoax?
Yup: But it would be great to see the envirowhackos fall for it.
"...and their turds turn into diamonds after three weeks"
Do people hunt these with a shotgun or a .22 lr?
What is the legal size and bag limit, and how do you field dress these suckers?
Why haven’t I seen these things mounted above fireplaces in huntin’ lodges?
Is Tiffany's open at this hour?
it takes an expert to find them, they’ll work with you if you put in three years gluing spotted owl feathers back from which they came....
Just remember, shiny side OUT.
As President of the Tree Octopus Protection Society I am appalled that people are questioning the existance of this species which is so critical to the planet’s ecosystem. It is well known that the noble Tree Octopus plays a crucial role in controlling the numbers of the dreaded tree mollusk which, if unchecked, would decimate the deciduous forests of the US. The deforestation that would result from the extinction of the Tree Octopus would cause uncontrolled global warming and the deaths of probably six or seven people.
“While you attack them in a lumberjack costume” I already do that every Saturday night with the neighbors.
You haven’t eaten good until you have had smoked tree octopus. Yum!
Wait a minute, I smell something wrong. Everybody knows that the Tree Octopus is found in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest, not in the deciduous forests. What gives?
“Wait a minute, I smell something wrong. Everybody knows that the Tree Octopus is found in the coniferous forests of the Pacific Northwest, not in the deciduous forests. What gives?”
Is a common misconception that the magnificent Tree Octopus lives in coniferous forests. In fact it only spawns in confers then migrates into the deciduous forests to live and to gorge themselves on the deadly Tree Mollusks. Every few years they must make the dangerous migration back to the conifer forest using their keen camoflage ability to avoid hordes of aboreal sharks that lie in wait. Its quite breathtaking actually. Would you like to make a donation?
The only “diamonds” I have use for is the “diamond plate” rear bumper on my old pickup truck... BTW, I HATE cats!!
Yes, I have a $3.00 bill I am ready to donate!
HAW!! That reminds me of an old maritime construction company owner on the docks of Anchorage, AK who had a weird looking little brass horn that curved upward and backward; he told female tourists to go out on the end of the dock to call up whales from the Cook Inlet. In fact he had dumped a bunch of talcum powder down the horn, and when the dupe blew on it, powder was expelled downward into their eyes, nose and mouth! I never saw the humor, but he laughed about it loudly. Amazing how dumb some folks are!!