Move Over Mermaids—This Iridescent Octopus Is the Ocean’s True Beauty

When a blanket octopus swims, it creates a kaleidoscope of colors twirling underwater. It’s a rainbow of beauty as it glides through the sea. It’s gorgeous, and it’s almost never seen by humans in real life. Don’t worry, you can still see this rare aquatic animal in an awe-inspiring video. Divers filmed a blanket octopus swimming off the coast of Romblon in the Philippines, capturing its majestic beauty for land dwellers to see.

The octopus glows pink, purple, blue, orange, and yellow as it swims, peering out with two glowing eyes in the video shared by USA Today. A long, cape-like fin trails behind it, and the whole creature looks more like a rainbow kite flying in the night sky than a fish swimming in the depths of the ocean. The iridescent creature is completely stunning! The 98-second video just isn’t long enough—we could stare at this blanket octopus all day.

In the comments, people compared the blanket octopus to mystical creatures. “Who needs dragons or unicorns or sea serpents when you have a multicolored floating tentacle blanket?” one person asked. Someone else wrote, “Earth is so dang cool. There are so many wacky animals and things that sound completely fictional. Like, a rainbow blanket octopus?? It’s like finding a magical unicorn in the ocean!”

Seriously! Why do unicorns and dragons get all the fanfare when blanket octopuses exist in real life?

What are Blanket Octopuses Exactly?

There are four species of blanket octopus (part of the octopus family): the most common of blanket octopus (Tremoctopus violaceus), the gelatinous blanket octopus (Tremoctopus gelatus), the Indo-Pacific violet blanket octopus (Tremoctopus gracilis), and the Robson’s blanket octopus (Tremoctopus robsoni).

Blanket octopuses are pelagic animals, meaning they live in the open ocean. Although their exact population numbers are not known, the common blanket octopus (Tremoctopus violaceus) is listed as “Least Concern” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species. They can adapt to tropical and subtropical conditions and travel from the surface of the water at night to depths of several hundred meters underwater. These cephalopods have been found in the Australian Great Barrier Reef, the Gulf of Mexico, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Indian Ocean.

They are solitary creatures that prey on small fish. Their natural predators are bigger fish, like billfish and tuna, as well as blue sharks and whales.

Females and Males are Vastly Different

Blanket octopuses are unique because of the dramatic differences between females and males. Females can weigh up to 40,000 times more than their male counterparts—about 6-10 pounds compared to less than an ounce. This is one of the largest differences in sex size in the entire animal kingdom.

Females are also the ones with the gorgeous billowing capes. Typically, octopuses have eight arms, and the blanket octopus is no different. However, their legs are connected by a special membrane, creating the cape-like, blanket webbing. These capes help scare off predators, and if that doesn’t work, they can rip the arms off man o’ war jellyfish and use the poisonous limbs as weapons to defend themselves. (Talk about powerful females!)

Males also don’t live as long, only about 1.5 years compared to females’ typical four years.

How Long Do These Octopuses Grow?

Female blanket octopuses can grow up to six feet long, while males reach only about the size of a small nut. Imagine coming across this gorgeous creature that’s as tall as a man in the ocean!

How Its Body Changes Colors

Like many other species of octopus, the blanket octopus has thousands of cells in its skin called chromatophores that allow it to instantly change colors and patterns to blend in with the environment. According to the Smithsonian, the microscopic chromatophores contain a sac full of pigment that changes the color’s appearance depending on whether it is expanded or contracted (like a balloon). Additionally, it has iridophores, which are iridescent reflecting plates, and leucophores that mirror the colors of the environment to help it hide from predators.

If blending in doesn’t work, a blanket octopus can escape predators by inflating its blanket to look larger and more intimidating, or by detaching its blanket to tangle up its attacker while it escapes. These blanket octopuses are just as intelligent and cunning as they are beautiful. Sometimes, the real world is even more magical than a fantasy!