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Monday, April 04, 2005

Shhh! I'm in disguise. As a, um... walking coconut.

"Huffard's team filmed the apple-sized Octopus marginatus in the tropical waters of Indonesia. Instead of its usual sprawling crawl, O. marginatus fled from divers by striding on two arms, with the rest of its arms wrapped around its body, giving it the appearance of a walking coconut." - Nature.com



Ok, so it's not an insect, or even an arthropod probably. BUT when startled, it throws 6 of its arms up around its head then runs away backwards, pretending to be a coconut. This is the first creature found to use an elegant form of slapstick farce as a survival mechanism.

If it didn't live underwater, biology tells us it would make an audible noise like "eeeeeeeeeeee" or "wololuwolululululululu" whilst fleeing, and would almost certainly habitate areas strewn with discarded banana peels.

Whole article here. It even has video clips!!!
posted by dead insect at 10:12 PM

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