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ArtistIn times of climate change, octopuses have begun to go terrestrial. Already today, some species, like the Abdopus aculeatus, regularly leave the water to hunt for crabs at low tide. To spend longer times on land and tap new food sources, octopuses have started to develop a fairly thick waxy body coating that helps them retain moisture. Also, they have begun to evolve a cartilage-based internal framework that serves as a rudimentary skeleton. The protective coating and the internal scaffolding come at the cost of octopuses amazing ability to change colors in milliseconds by means of specialized skin cells called chromatophores. The chromatophores have atrophied and have been largely replaced by a very intricate green-brown camouflage pattern of octopuses’ thicker skin. The octopuses have retained full flexibility of their limbs and are able to move very nimbly and quickly to escape and hide from predators. Their new feeding grounds are grasslands, where they forage for worms, insects, frogs, salamanders, and the odd small mammal. The image shows three octopuses moving along a grassy meadow in search of food, under cover of a cloudy day, which helps prevent their skin from dessicating. The style is a biological illustration with extreme scientific precision, drawn as line art in bold colors.
Octopuses go terrestrial, requiring quite a lot of anatomical adaptation and evolution.