#Trees of the pacific northwest skin#

The challenges and richness of this environment (and the intimate way in which it interacts with it,) may account for the tree octopus's advanced behavioral development. Adaptations its ancestors originally evolved in the three dimensional environment of the sea have been put to good use in the spatially complex maze of the coniferous Olympic rainforests.

#Trees of the pacific northwest skin#

Because of the moistness of the rainforests and specialized skin adaptations, they are able to keep from becoming desiccated for prolonged periods of time, but given the chance they would prefer resting in pooled water.Īn intelligent and inquisitive being (it has the largest brain-to-body ratio for any mollusk), the tree octopus explores its arboreal world by both touch and sight. Unlike most other cephalopods, tree octopuses are amphibious, spending only their early life and the period of their mating season in their ancestral aquatic environment. These solitary cephalopods reach an average size (measured from arm-tip to mantle-tip,) of 30-33 cm.

Their habitat lies on the Eastern side of the Olympic mountain range, adjacent to Hood Canal. The Pacific Northwest tree octopus ( Octopus paxarbolis) can be found in the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsula on the west coast of North America.