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Sea Creatures 101: Changeable Animals Series Mimic Octopus: Aqua Impersonator

© Sharon Rorem

There's a relatively new find in the aquatic animal world. It doesn't have an "official" name yet. Unofficially, it's being called the "mimic octopus," or Octopus sp. Octopuses (or octopi-as some prefer to call them) can easily change colors within the pigment range of their skin. This new type of octopus can go beyond that. It can actually change its shape to resemble other sea creatures.

The mimic octopus was first discovered around 1998 off the coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia by Mark Norman from Melbourne University in Australia. The first octopus discovered was about 60 centimeters (23.6 inches) long. In two years' time, Norman and his team filmed nine different mimic octopi transforming themselves to resemble lionfish, sea snakes, and flatfish. Since 1998, other sightings of the mimic octopus have been reported in Bali and Dominica.

It's an amazing sight to see these creatures transform themselves into other animals. No one is sure why they do it, but the common hypothesis is that somehow they sense which animal approaching them is a threat. The physical aspects of the transformation are easier to explain. Sole fish, lionfish and sea snakes are animals frequently mimicked by this octopus. Here's how they do it:

Sole fish are oval- shaped poisonous flat fish. To resemble this possible predator, the octopus uses its jet propulsion to draw up speed, and then pulls all of its arms together to look like a leaf-shaped wedge. It waves up and down, the way a flat fish swims. It changes its color to a drab brown, banded across the body like a sole fish.

Lionfish have feathery blue and white striped poisonous fins extending from their body. A mimic octopus will change to a bright blue, creating banded stripes on its legs and flaring them in all directions as it swims close to the seafloor.

Sea snakes are poisonous reptiles often seen in the ocean. The mimic octopus takes on the black and yellow banding of a sea snake and hides its body and all but two of its arms in a hole in the ocean floor or a crevice of rock. The two exposed arms wave in opposite directions, resembling two sea snakes. Other impersonations are jaw fish, cuttlefish, jellyfish, crabs and eels. The mimic octopus has been observed to do more than a dozen different animals. All of these animals are known to be poisonous. All are some threat to the octopus either directly or indirectly.

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