Giant Pacific Octopus

Re:Giant Pacific Octopus by thechao on Friday September 18, 2020 @11:56PM (#24524879)

I read an entire book on this! It’s because their expected time-to-predation is very short. Genes that are deleterious to long life-span aren’t selected against and, thus, accumulate. (“Other Minds” by Peter Smith.)

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Re:Giant Pacific Octopus by nkingsy on Saturday September 19, 2020 @03:03AM (#24525733)

Now I have to figure out how to work "expected time to predation" into a sentence. Maybe the next time I eat the last cookie.

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Re:Giant Pacific Octopus by chrisco255 on Saturday September 19, 2020 @12:35AM (#24525106)

Are whales their primary predators?

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Re:Giant Pacific Octopus by steve_adams_86 on Saturday September 19, 2020 @01:05AM (#24525256)

I know sharks are a significant predator where I live and in places I’ve seen in documentaries. I’d assume that’s the case around all of the oceans since sharks and octopuses occur together everywhere. I’m not sure if that’s the case in the deep sea, though.

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Re:Giant Pacific Octopus by pvaldes on Saturday September 19, 2020 @07:42AM (#24526755)

Probably not. I had found a few octopus in cetacean's stomachs, but they prefer squids. Gregarious and much more convenient to hunt.

Seals on the other time... Yup; I can tell you than monk seals definitely eat octopus.

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Re:Giant Pacific Octopus by thechao on Saturday September 19, 2020 @02:49PM (#24529622)

The octopuses the author studied were shallow-water reef dwellers. They were predated by fish, mostly.

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