Octopus Socks!

Sixteen arms to cover my ten toes? But of course! In my ongoing search for everything octopus I found these cuties and thought I'd share them with you.

These are adult size octopus socks, the only adult size octopus socks I could find, in fact! Here are a few more for the wee ones in your life...

These little guys come as part of a 3-pack from Baby Gap.

Eensie weensie octopus socks from Gymboree.

A pink pair of octopus toe socks for your little girl.

More Octopus Chandeliers and Sconces from Adam Wallacavage

As promised, here is a whole bunch more octopus chandelier glory!

For those who didn't see the earlier octopus chandelier post, all of the featured chandeliers and sconces below were designed and created by Adam Wallacavage and were part of Wallacavage's solo exhibition, Les Trésors de la Tanière de Neptune at the Jonathan LeVine Gallery in New York.

Amber Octopus Lamp

I've had this baby in my living room for ages. I bought it while spending some time in San Francisco. After poking around on the web, I've found that no matter where you live, you can get this beautiful lamp!

Product Description from Mydanilo.com

Octopus glass table lamp. Gorgeous colorfull glass detail work on the lamp. This octopus lamp features an antiqued bronze finished metal base of tentacles, with the head of the octopus made of marbled amber stained glass. The perfect accent lamp for a desk or nightstand. Great gift for the octopus lovers.

Table Lamp Details:

Cord: 6ft with switch
Size: 6"w x 8"h
Watts: 7

Octopus Mythology: The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus

The octopus has been the subject of many mythological stories over the years, although in my humble opinion, none of those stories have been quite as outrageous as that of the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. Yup, you read that correctly: Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

Zapato productions describes themselves as "your source for conspiracies and other diversions". Their "effort" to save the endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus is one such diversion...and a funny one at that!

Visit their site for a good laugh and photos of Tree Octopus sightings...enjoy!

Video: Octopus Hatching from Egg

Wow - this is a great video showing an octopus actually hatching from its egg. The hatching is followed by different demonstrations of skills that the young octopus learns.

Nicholas Cage - A Cephalophile?

It's true, Nicholas Cage once had a pet octopus...

Nic has been known for owning exotic animals. He admitted once to having a pet octopus, claiming that studying things that are totally different helps him with his acting. Guess that also explains the salt water sharks, lizard, and crocodile? For a time he even had two pet king cobras (Moby and Sheba) that he would observe for hours from a specially constructed cell in his home with a glass of wine in his hand and a bottle of poison antidote very nearby. One night he mentioned them on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" and his neighbors immediately began fighting to get the poisonous reptiles removed. Cage donated them to a local zoo a short time later.

I found this out at GetBack.com along with loads of other useless information. Ahhh, I love the internet.

Rani Arabella Cashmere Octopus Pillow

Available for purchase at GraciousHome.com
Product Description
Made in Italy using Lurex and Loro Piana yarns. First time ever for a Lurex jacquard method to be used on a cashmere pillow! Only for the most chic interiors. $350.

Well, for $350 it better make my interior chic!

Video: Hairy Octopus

This is a very cool video! That must have been one keen diver filming the hairy octopus - the octopus blends in so well that it could easily be written off as a bit of algae and missed entirely.

Species: The Hairy Octopus

Ok, the species name is not official. Not much is known about this elusive non-identified species of octopus, although I did find it on one site labeled as "The Holy Grail of Cephalopods". How cool is that? These hairy lookin' fellas are found in the waters of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

These photos were taken in Satonda, Indonesia. More wonderful marine-life shots from Eric Cheng can be found on Flickr .


Less than 1 inch in length!
There are also a few good shots shots on Diving4Images.com. It would be a copyright infringement to post them here, so you'll hafta' mosey on over there to see for yourself.

Octopus with 96 Tentacles!

The better to hold you with, my dear...

This is old news, but fascinating nonetheless. The octopus pictured below has 88 additional tentacles, a rarity, even for a creature as strange as the octopus.


This strange specimen is on permanent display at the Shima Marineland Aquarium in Japan. The octopus actually has 8 arms attached to its body, and the additional 84 tentacles are all extensions of those 8.

The 96-tentacled Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris) was captured in 1998 in nearby Matoya Bay. It weighed 3.3 kilograms (about 7 lbs) and measured 90 centimeters (3 ft) long. Before dying 5 months after being placed in captivity, the creature laid eggs, making it the first known extra-tentacled octopus to do so in captivity. All the baby octopuses hatched with the normal number of tentacles, but unfortunately they only survived a month.

Currently there is no theory that fully explains the surplus tentacles, although speculation maintains the oddity to be the result of abnormal regeneration that occurred after the octopus suffered some sort of injury.

In the above photo, the 96-tentacled female octopus can be seen laying eggs.

Octopus Stationary from Etsy.com

Etsy.com seller, 27DesignCo has some faboosh stationary for sale. My favorite, of course, is this very stylish "Octopus No. 8" set:

Product Description
Quantity: Box set sold with 12 like cards, that can either be used as postcards or notecards, and 12 envelopes.

Dimensions: Cards measure 4.25" x 5.5" with rounded corners.

With their bold inky black graphics printed on smooth white paper these box sets make a striking statement. Give a set as a gift or keep them for yourself and send them with your own messages!

"octopus no. 8" is no. 8 of 12 in the creature series.

The Octopuses of Burning Man!

From Wikipedia: Burning Man is an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert, in Northern Nevada. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening.

The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.

The event is open to public for 8 days. It begins on the last Monday in August and ends on the day of the American Labor Day holiday (the first Monday in September). It opens on the Monday of the week before, at 12 AM (00:00). Some organized volunteers, however, arrive a few weeks in advance to prepare the infrastructure of Black Rock City, the temporary city created by Burning Man participants in what is flat high elevation desert before and after the event.

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It's not often one sees a giant octopus bursting out of an ancient lakebed! Built for Burning Man 2002, this octopus was known as "Creature of the Deep" by the Madagascar Institute. Madagascar built the climbable sculpture in two weeks onsite in the desert, using four tons of steel, a half-mile of rebar, and an acre of agriculture netting. At night, the octopus glowed with theatrical lighting and bursts of flamethrowers. With support from Black Rock Arts and the Society for Experimental Art and Learning.

Check out the Madagascar Institute's Flickr Stream for pictures of the octopus in daylight and during construction.

Also seen at Burning Man 2002 was The Octopus Car by Scott Kildall. The Octopus Car performed a musical fire show. Each tentacle released quick bursts of flames in rapid sequence, which created a percussive beat. By adjusting the tempo and the pitch of the beat the operator became, essentially, a propane DJ, responding to the energy and enthusiasm of a quickly-gathering audience.

A unique aspect of this piece was the formation of the sound: each beat was created by an explosion of propane at the mouth of a steel pipe. By electronically specifying the amount of propane in each explosion, the musical controller created varying tones, accompanied by a fireball, which added a visceral visual appeal to the overall effect.


The following photos are a collection of various octopuses seen over the years at Burning Man...

Octopus Surfboards

As it heats up here on the west coast, more and more people are hitting the beaches to take advantage of SoCal's ample surf. In the spirit of the season, here are some rad octopus surf boards I found:

The first two are hand-painted by Tom Fleming, who is featured in the third picture.

Video: Octopus Swimming by Jet Propulsion

This brief video beautifully demonstrates how the octopus uses jet propulsion to get around.

"My Pet Octopus" Jewelry from ModCloth.com

Guess which favorite creature of ours is making the rounds on ModCloth.com??? Give up? It's the octopus! Check out this nifty (and very affordable) jewelry set:

Meet your new best friend! This cephalopod will swim along his sturdy chain while you go about your business, but the lobster claw clasp will keep him from floating too far. In stunning antique gold, this pendant is so charming that your friends will long for one of their own!

Complete your Pet Octopus family with this adorable matching ring. Our delightful sea friend has an adjustable back, and is available in antique gold or silver. Wear him with your necklace and cuff, or alone to let your hands get all the attention.

Are you completely in love with your Pet Octopus Necklace, but want to try something new? These bracelets feature the same friendly sea creature, but this time he's swimming along a double-bar cuff. As if that wasn't enough, these accessories are available in silver or antique gold to suit your octopus fancy!

Primitive Octopus Fossil: Pohlsepia Mazonensis

From: Tonmo.com
Written by: Phil Eyden, November 2004

Pohlsepia mazonensis was named after the person who discovered it, James Pohl, and the location, Mazon Creek. It is the earliest octopod that has been described to date and is approximately 296 million years old. Up until the recent discovery and publication of Pohlsepia in 2000 it was thought that the octopus lineage stemmed from the vampyromorphs sometime in the mid Jurassic, so it is obvious how important this discovery was of a soft-bodied octopod from the Upper Carboniferous (Pennsylvannian) as it pushed the origin of the octopus group back at least 140 million years further. It is important to remember that Pohlsepia clearly had its own ancestors and even at this early date had clearly defined cirrate-octopus features. The true origin of the octopods must have happened a few million years before even this remarkable fossil.

The fossil hails from the Upper Carboniferous deposits at Mazon Creek in Illinois, a source of extensive coal deposits. Many other cephalopods have been found in these deposits including nautiloids and the shelled torpedo-shaped ten-armed coleoid known as Jeletzkya. Specifically Pohlsepia comes from the Francis Creek Shale Member, this site of exceptional preservation consisted of rapid deposition of silt and sediments believed to have been at the mouth of a river delta where it met the sea. It is believed that storm surges following heavy rains swept masses of sediment down the river and out to sea burying coastal and marine animals and vegetation extremely rapidly. Concretions of ironstone then formed around the dead animals very quickly. Pohlsepia originates from the 'Essex' marine deposits and is preserved as a carbon film resembling a compressed stain inside one such nodule; this is typical for most fossils from Mazon Creek.


Just one example of Pohlsepia is known; as it is in a primitive condition the octopod actually has ten arms, two of these were modified but the other eight were approximately of the same length. The animal is small and is estimated to have had a Mantle Length of just 25mm long by 35mm wide. The animal lacks an internal shell much as with modern cirrate octopuses. The animal is sack shaped, has no clearly defined head and has very short arms. It also had two fins on its mantle, which are longer than they are wide, much like modern cirrate octopuses. The fossil has been preserved in a ventral aspect, eyes, a funnel, mandibles and a radula are identifiable and there is an indistinct feature that may represent an ink sac (extant cirrate octopods do not have these). No arm hooks or suckers are present. Peter Doyle and Joanne Kluessendorf published the fossil in 2000 and they have concluded that Pohlsepia should be assigned to the order Cirroctopoda.

Pohlsepia is housed at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois.

Octopus Necklace from Ross Simons

Earlier this month, my mother surprised me with this fabulous bit of octopus bling! I've been wearing it nonstop and receiving tons of compliments. This sterling silver and 14k gold octopus necklace just happens to be on sale, so go get it while the gettin's good! Go to Ross-Simons.com for details.



Product Description
Squiggly sea creature comes ashore to fish for fashion compliments in a chic combo of pebbled sterling silver and 14kt gold.

Octopus Raincoat and Rainboots

You know what they say: April showers bring May flowers. This April, you can keep your kids dry with this snazzy octopus rain gear from CocoBonBons.com.

A deep sea adventure print is decorated with octopus, fish and sting rays! The coat is in s blue colors, inspired by the ocean. This hooded raincoat is fully lined with a matching dark blue and white striped lining and perfect for your toddler boy. Also has a matching zipper and velcro tabs at the front placket for easy dressing.

Rain boots featuring a deep sea adventure print with octopus, fish and sting rays. Made of durable rubber and textured soles. The rain boots feature a white cotton lining. Tab at top of rain boot allows for easy dressing. A perfect pair of rainy day play shoes for your little boy!


Perfect pint sized umbrella! Laminated cotton in the deep sea adventure print is a perfect match to the raincoat and rain boots! Matching plastic pom poms at corners with matching hooked handles add extra detail. Strap has velcro tab closure for easy use.

How Does an Octopus Move?

The octopus has a few different modes of transportation available. The first of which is crawling. Octopuses sometimes travel along the ocean floor, or even in tide pools, and sometimes on land by walking on their arms.

It has been reported that octopuses can also travel by bi-pedal walking. Walking on two arms (or legs, if you will) is a slower more inconspicuous means of movements for the octopus. Both crawling and bi-pedal walking are safe modes of travel when there are predators nearby; crawling or walking allows the octopus to quickly escape a predator's clutches without drawing attention to itself. Often, when octopuses crawl or walk, they look like plants!

The movement that octopuses are often marveled at for is swimming by jet propulsion. This is the octopuses fastest means of locomotion. This process takes place by the octopus drawing water into a cavity in its body, then expelling the jet of water from a contractile mantle, and aiming it via a muscular siphon. The force of this squirting is so powerful that it moves the octopus swiftly backwards through the water. That is why octopuses swim headfirst, with their arms trailing behind.

An octopus using jet proplusion to swim over seagrass.

Georgia Aquarium's "Coldwater Quest" to Expand Octopus Exhibit

Georgia Aquarium, the world's largest aquarium has announced that they are expanding their facilities, and one of the upgrades will include an additional octopus!

The aquarium currently has one Giant Pacific Octopus. It has not yet been reported what species will be joining him in Coldwater Quest.

For the full scoop, click here.

Octopus Genius Attracts the Masses

From: AustrianTimes.at, April 6, 2009

A "handy" octopus is currently the main attraction at Vienna’s Haus des Meeres aquarium.

Keepers hide the unnamed spineless genius’ food inside a jar, which they then screw up inside a second jar before dropping it into his tank. The octopus opens the contraption using his tentacles before devouring the contents.

The stunt has become a massive attraction, especially for children, who head to the octopus’ aquarium at 11am everyday, as that is dinner time for the witty animal.

Last year, the Haus des Meeres (House of the Sea) had a record number of visitors. More than 336,162 people visited the aquarium in 2008, a 33-per-cent increase on 2007.

The Haus des Meeres, located in the WWII-era anti-aircraft tower in Esterhazy park in Vienna’s Mariahilf district, had to report bad news in 2007, when six of its nine sharks died while being transferred to their new, bigger aquarium.

Octopus Ceramics from RHoneyPots.com

You may have seen the work of Liz Russell who sells her handmade wares from the website RHoneyPots.com in my previous post, "Octopus Teapots". As it turns out, teapots are just one of Russell's cephalopod delights...

Seeing this octopus tile in my home would make me smile!

Another octopus tile for your bath or kitchen.

A collection of butter bells, one of which features an octopus.

Octopus soap dish.

Is this octopus serving bowl stunning or what?

The best part of waking up is an octopus on your cup.

"Honorable Mention" goes to the squid bowl, which is also quite marvelous.

And not to be forgotten, the nautilus makes an appearance too!

Lis Russell's creations are high-fired stoneware, handcrafted & hand painted original pieces. They are microwave, oven, & dishwasher safe. All glazes are nontoxic. The items featured on Everything Octopus, along with hundreds of other beautiful designs, can be purchased directly from her website, RHoneyPots.com, and she even does pieces on commission (ya know, just in case you want your very own, super special octopus stoneware service for twelve!)