The "Skimmer" Scoop
SIES Weekly Newsletter
“Incredibly Bright Creatures” by: Zara Patel
From the depths of the Indian ocean to the shallows of the Charleston harbor- octopi have always been the thing to catch my eye. The way they skitter across the ocean floor in such creative ways. They stand out- despite having the ability to blend in.
How do they blend in? They use special sacs, cells and muscles in their skin to change color and texture. Chromatophores (The top layer): Small, stretchy sacs filled with red, yellow, brown, or black pigment. Tiny muscles pull the sac wide open to show or display color, or relax the tension in the muscles to let it shrink back to a tiny dot. Tiridophores (The middle layer): Reflective, mirror-like structures that reflect blue, green, silver, gold, or purple light. Leucophores (The deepest layer): White-reflecting cells that shine ambient light everywhere to make the upper colors look brighter and act as a blank piece of paper. All of these things are what help octopus’ change colors.
Octopi tend to eat a diverse, plentiful variety of marine animals including crustaceans like crabs and shrimp- and molluscs along with small fish. Believe it- or not, the Giant Pacific Octopus will even eat small sharks like bull sharks.
Octopi live in the ocean (obviously), tide-pools, and on land. No- if you are wondering, that was not a typo. Octopi can live up to 1 hour on land. And occasionally octopi, if the time is right, living in aquarium tanks with no lid will get out of their tank and meander around the aquarium until time is up. They can even fit through a hole smaller than your phone. This is because the only hard part of an octopus is their beak. They can fit through any space bigger than their beak, so basically, anything their tentacles can fit through.
How do they do all this? Well, they use their heads. Partially, they use their tentacles. What? Their tentacles? Yes, their tentacles. The only things they have in their head is their stomach, their central brain, and their 3 hearts. Yes 3, and all 3 of them pump blue blood through an octopus’ body. An octopus's tentacles have BSN or brains, sensors, and neurons. The brains act like mini brains- so if an octopi’s tentacle goes flying, not only do they regrow it, they can say- That one had a mind of its own. Not only that, but the tentacle, since it has a brain, can still move by itself. Sounds like something out of a horror movie, right? Octopi smell through their tentacles’ suckers or suctions. They have itty-bitty smell sensors that allow them to sniff even the faintest smell. This is how they sense their prey.
How do they reproduce? Well, octopi mothers give birth to them, yup, all 400,000 of them, and the babies will stay in their egg sac from 5 days or up to 4.5 years! Once they hatch the mother octopus will feed them until she starves herself to death looking after them. When the mother octopus dies, the babies will turn into new octopi. Out of 400,000 eggs only 1 or 2 octopi will live, and only for a lifespan of 5 months to 6 years. Of the ones that survive they will be great and do great in the lifespan of an octopus. We all should appreciate these incredibly bright creatures, that are the closest thing we have to intelligent alien life. Thank you.
In music, students in CD, K, 1st and 2nd grade have been learning about singing and playing high and low pitches. They have also been practicing singing with expression! Students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade have been reading pitches on the treble staff! We have been decoding notes on the staff to letter names and then playing the music on xylophones, metallophones and glockenspiels. All grades have been working on music in a minor mode.
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