Octopus Loses Arm

yifei

Octopus Loses Arm 章鱼逃命大法

Here in the Timor Sea off northern Australia, take a look at a creature that seems to have the soul of a riverboat gambler. It moves through turf dominated by large hungry predators, and it fights these predators in a way that will astound you.

This is ameloctopus -- it's not a baby. It's one of the smallest octopi in the world, stretching only a tiny 10 inches from tentacle tip to tentacle tip. Ameloctopus scoots across the sea bottom, its limbs hunting almost blindly for small invertebrates like miniscule crabs it can gobble with ease.

Speaking of gobbling with ease, there are plenty of creatures down here who would love to wolf down this soft little guy. This blue crab is much more crustacean than any ameloctopus can handle.
The crab eyes its quarry then pounces, going for all eight arms and the body. But the crafty ameloctopus scrams out of there. The crab seems to gloat over its big moment as a master hunter. And then it examines what it's got ---- an arm, one crummy arm, I mean, what the heck?

Ameloctopus can afford to gamble because of its ability to drop an arm when it gets in a jam. It won't be disabled for long. The arm will grow back.

The crab gobbles down the arm while ameloctopus finds a convenient hiding hole to begin the regeneration process. If you scour the sea bottom where this critter lives, you may come upon a still squirming limb. Throughout its life, ameloctopus will lose one limb after another, but will continue to survive.

Words

turf : Turf is short, thick, even grass. 草皮,草根土
invertebrate : An invertebrate is a creature that does not have a spine, for example an insect, a worm, or an octopus. 无脊椎动物
crustacean : A crustacean is an animal with a hard shell and several pairs of legs, which usually lives in water. Crabs, lobsters, and shrimps are crustaceans. 甲壳纲动物
quarry : A person's or animal's quarry is the person or animal that they are hunting. 猎物
gloat over : If someone is gloating, they are showing pleasure at their own success or at other people's failure in an arrogant and unpleasant way. 贪婪地或幸灾乐祸地看(或想)
critter : A critter is a living creature. 生物
wolf down: If someone wolfs (down) their food, they eat it all very quickly and greedily. 狼吞虎咽地吃