USA: An extremely rare 7-armed octopus was discovered washed up on an island in Washington State’s Puget Sound.
The extremely rare animal was found by an outdoorsman on the Whidbey Beach on the early morning of August 29, 2020.
The man said that the tide was still out when he saw the octopus.
He submitted images of the octopus to a local wildlife organization, who then passed the images along to a number of marine life centers.
They identified it likely as a 7-legged octopus.
7-legged octopuses are also known as Haliphron atlanticus. In reality, they have 8 arms, but one of them is hidden and only comes out during mating.
The images suggested that the creature was around 3 feet and over 5 inches long.
Experts believe that it could be an East Pacific red octopus or a vampire squid, which typically lives at depths of 2,000 to 3,000 feet.
Bob Kiel, a chief engineer at the Seattle Aquarium, believes that the octopus could be a dumb o octopus, a type of octopus that is capable of growing up to 5 feet long.
A seven-armed octopus, a.k.a. Haliphron atlanticus, lives in warmer waters in the Atlantic Ocean, and is very unlikely to find in a place like Washington.
However, climate change has been altering the habitats of marine life.
Elaina Jorgensen, a marine biologist at NOAA, said that she has seen images of a 7-armed octopus off the coast of British Columbia,
Eleina said:
It’s possible this animal was blown into Puget Sound during the wind storm last week and died from our low salinity waters.
The octopus that was found was in a relatively good condition, said Eleina.