Nature Blog Network

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Cephalophilia #1 - Blue Ringed Octopus - H. lunulata



I thought a touch of cephalopod love on a beautiful weekend day. A nice example of one of the three genus of known toxic cephalopods: Hapalochlaena lunulata (Greater Blue Ring Octopus) from the Philippines. Highly toxic, they are rarely above 70g in size, but have enough toxins in them to deliver 20+ doses of toxin at lethal levels to an adult human. The chief component of their toxin is the same compound at the heart of cone snail toxins and the toxin of pufferfish and causes paralysis including respiratory and cardiac shutdown. Fortunately this guy hunts small crustaceans mostly, and bites on humans are self defense.


Kingdom
Animalia

Phylum
Mollusca

Class
Cephalopoda

Order
Octopoda

Family
Octopodidae

Genus
Hapalochlaena

Species
Hapalochlaena lunulata

1 comment:

  1. Beautiful and lethal, what a fantastic combination.

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