Featured Creatures

The giant Pacific octopus is the largest octopus, with arms up to 16 feet long and weighing as much as 100 pounds. Ranging from Japan to Alaska to Baja California, this octopus lives in shallow coastal waters to depths of 5,000 feet. Each of the octopus’ eight arms is covered with as many as 200 suckers that are sensitive to touch and taste. And it’s a smarty pants, too: octopuses are big-brained invertebrates.Watch an octopus catching a crab here: http://shapeoflife.org/video/behavior/molluscs-octopus-catching-crab

The purple sea urchin that lives in the west coast of the United States is an echinoderm with tube feet and long spines and a mouth with strong jaws. It’s a voracious herbivore that can have a devastating influence on its environment if not held in check by predation.

Arthropods grow in a very different way than you and I do. Blue crabs, like all arthropods, shed their exoskeletons to grow. For crabs, that means shedding their shells and growing a new one, a process called molting.