There’s no denying that Mother Nature never ceases to astonish. The octopus, one of the most enigmatic undersea species, is confusing marine researchers at this moment. All this comes after a rare, though cute video revealed that these animals could have dreams. The creature is changing its color while it sleeps, which makes it much more intriguing.
The gorgeous footage was included in the Octopus: Making Contact documentary series on PBS, which aired last month. It also depicts an octopus by the name of “Heidi” that is dozing off in a tank of water as it soon begins to change color. David Scheel, a marine researcher at Alaska Pacific University, claims that the animal is dreaming.
“If she is dreaming, this is a dramatic moment,” Scheel said. “You could almost narrate the body changes and narrate the dream. She sees a crab and her color starts to change a little bit, then she turns all dark, octopuses will do that when they leave the bottom. This is a camouflage, like she’s just subdued a crab and she’s just going to sit there and eat it, and she doesn’t want anyone to notice her.”
The fact that the octopus’s mantle is a particularly sensitive area of its body, however, is what the scientists find to be truly amazing and somewhat inexplicable.
The creature’s numerous brains also allow for extremely exact control of the skin color change. Therefore, it is quite uncommon for octopuses to utilize it to sleep.
“It’s a very unusual behavior to see the color come and go on her mantle like that, just to be able to see all the different color patterns flashing one after the other, you don’t normally see that when an animal’s sleeping,” Scheel said. “This really is fascinating!”
Until the marine scientist will be able to find an explanation for the rare phenomenon, there’s nothing we ca do, but admire the lovely footage:
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