A curled octopus (Eledone cirrhosa) has been filmed dramatically changing colour on a rocky shoreline in Wales.
The footage was captured by Ciara Taylor, a project assistant for the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), who was practising her identification skills on a stretch of coast by Menai Bridge beach in Anglesey when some fellow rockpoolers alerted her to the rare spectacle.
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Curled octopus - captured on camera
“I met two other young people who were rockpooling and one of them saw some tentacles sticking out from under a rock - they shouted over to me, so I ran over, and then we waited," says Taylor.
"It eventually came out and started crawling back towards the sea! We couldn't believe it. It was an amazing reminder of the beautiful wildlife we have in North Wales and why we need to protect it.”
The footage captures the white arms of the octopus emerging from beneath a rock, gradually revealing the entire body. It swiftly changes colour to orange and crawls away over rocks and seaweed, safely returning to the sea.
The curled octopus, also known as the lesser octopus, northern octopus or horned octopus, is a species of cephalopod found in the north-east Atlantic, including the British Isles. They have a broad mantle up to 50 cm in length and slender arms. Like other octopus species, they can change colour quickly to match their surroundings – but this is rarely caught on camera in the UK.
Are octopus numbers increasing?
The Marine Conservation Society's Seasearch program, which invites rockpoolers, snorkelers and divers to document marine life, reported a rise in octopus numbers in 2022.
“Curled octopus are found here all the time, and we get a handful of records every year," says Angus Jackson, Seasearch Data Officer at the Marine Conservation Society. "In contrast, we very seldom receive records for Mediterranean or common octopus. The summer and autumn of 2022 were fascinating exceptions, where there appeared to be a boom in the population of common octopus, and we received many records. Such booms have been noted in the past, but not for several decades.”
The charity is asking for more people to join their Seasearch programme to help identify inform scientists about our changing seas.
