Caribbean reef octopus

Photo: Jean-Paul Cassez · CC BY-NC

Caribbean reef octopuses are intelligent cephalopods that make their dens in the dark compartments and pipe fittings of the Tibbetts wreck, emerging at night to hunt crabs and fish. They are capable of instantaneous colour and texture change via chromatophores and papillae in the skin, making them near-invisible against the encrusted hull plating even in torch light. Females brood their eggs inside the wreck's interior spaces without feeding for the entire incubation period, dying shortly after the eggs hatch.