What, you say, is a Blanket Octopus?
Ever fear the terrors of the ocean? Sharks, killer whales, barracudas, and all those predators hidden in the deep, deep ocean where only bioluminescent fish can see and not implode under the pressure. Well, I have an adoration for a terror not found too far from the surface or mid-water depths in the subtropical and tropical waters. An intelligent octopus that's not well known, these beauties are rare to behold. Most commonly spotted in areas of the Mediterranean Sea, northern coast of Australia, and somewhat in the Atlantic Ocean. They're called ‘Batman of the sea’, ‘Blanket Octopus’, but their scientific name is Tremoctopus, and we’ll be looking at the ‘Tremoctopus Violaceus’ one of the four species of their family.
Ever think of a blanket as a weapon?
When you think of an octopus you think of an eight legged creature that shoots ink as a defense
, this is far from the case when it comes to a blanket octopus. Instead of ink, they unravel their large ‘blanket’ to scare off would be predators. Female Blanket Octopi are normally 2 m in length. Two of their tentacles are longer than the rest, they hold her blanket. It’s a web of sorts, and expands to make the female look larger, in dire cases pieces of the ‘blanket’ can detach as an allurement so that the female can swim away while the predator is distracted.
This is not their only technique to defend themselves, Blanket Octopi are commonly known for being unaffected by the quite deadly sting of the Portuguese Man ’o War jellyfish. A very uncommon gift, they use it to their advantage by ripping the tentacles of the man o’ war off and using them as weapons against predators, the full grown females don’t normally use this, all males and most young females who lack a large enough ‘blanket’ do. They are a quite dangerous figure of the see, something you do not want to mess with.
It wasn't until recently that there was a living documented male blanket octopus. The females alone are rare to be found in the ocean, but the males are almost no where to be seen. More for the fact they die after mating, rather than predators. Even as small as they are, a male blanket octopus using a man o' war tentacle as a whip deters even the hungriest of predators.
Why do the male blanket octopi need to use these man o’ war tentacles as weapons? Simple; the average male blanket octopi is 2.4 cm long. For some who don't know how extreme this sexual dimorphism is, there are 100 cm in 1 m, so 200 cm in 2 m, this means a 197.6 cm difference in size. With this in mind, mating would 
be quite difficult. How they mate is different than most; the male has a third modified tentacle that he fills with his sperm, rips it off and presents it to the female octopus. This means that the male octopus now dies. The female blanket octopus keeps the tentacle in an internal body cavity till she is ready to have her eggs. Quite a few of these female octopus are found with many tentacles stored. They don't need to use the modified third arm right away. The female can lay up to 100,000 eggs, which could explain the collection of tentacles.
We laugh in the face of danger!
So with an arsenal of weapons at the females, and even the males disposal, most blanket octopi have very little predators. Those two have been identified as the swordfish, and spearfish in the Mediterranean sea. Like most octopi they are quite intelligent creatures of the sea/ocean. Their blanket is attached to them, a part of them and yet they can detach. Yes it does grow back. This creature is rare to be seen, which gives us little information overall about them. It's speculated that they do not use ink as a projectile since it hasn't been seen, unlike their large blanket and the use of the man o' war tentacles for weapons.
An unusual and scarcely seen, deadly beauty of the sea.
