This story ran in the April 2016 issue of National Geographic magazine. In most octopus species it’s customary after sex for the female to make a meal—of her partner. To avoid being eaten ...

Oceans are home to some of the most fascinating and mysterious creatures that have survived on our planet for millions of years. One of them is the eight-limbed, soft-bodied mollusk, octopus.

Instead, she stumbled upon an octopus named Scarlett. As she swam close to the otherworldly creature, it hesitated. But ...

This story appears in the July 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine ... through to send baby argonauts out into the world. This octopus species lives in open water in Earth’s tropical ...

Add in the octopus’s small size (generally around eight inches), relatively short arms, bell-shaped body, pale coloring, and tendency to hover over the seafloor, and you’ve got a cephalopod ...

Curious, you flip it over. A row of suckers. A pair of eyes. An octopus. In particular, Amphioctopus marginatus, also known as the coconut octopus. Its common name comes from its habit of hiding ...

The giant Pacific octopus grows bigger and lives longer than any other octopus species. The size record is held by a specimen that was 30 feet across and weighed more than 600 pounds. Averages are ...

This story appears in the May 2017 issue of National Geographic magazine ... and any hard material—like its namesake, the octopus, which has no internal skeleton. A Harvard University research ...

Blanket octopus pairs are some of the undersea world’s oddest couples. What’s so startling is the size difference: Males are about the size of a walnut—less than an inch long—but some ...

The clip features National Geographic explorer Dr. Alex Schnell approaching an octopus, who is reluctant at first, before reaching out to Alex and making contact. The footage is stunning ...