Talk:Octopus/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Edit request 25 July 2012

Not done: please be more specific about what needs to be changed. Here's the protection log entry. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)The Etymology Section of the Octopus page needs correction.

Using Wikipedia Latin pages as my reference guide for Latin Nouns. 1st declension nouns feminine singular and plural respectively end in these endings:-A,-AE; Greek assumed 1st declension: -E,-AE; Latin masc -ES,-AE; and Latin masc -AS,-AE. 2nd declension Nouns -masc -US, -I; or masc -R/-ER,-I; or neuter -UM,-A; or Greek feminine -OS/-US, -I; or Greek neuter -UM/-UN,-I 3rd Declension Nouns neuter -O,-ES; or neuter -N,-IS; or neuter +X-, +CT-ES; or neuter I stem +AL,-AI; or Greek assumed masc +,-ES; or Greek IS stem +IS, +ES These Wikipedia case endings agree with Wheelock's Latin book, which is the book used by the University of Washington, Seattle, to teach Latin. The point is this etymological section about Octopus being a third declension Latin Greek assumed ending is messed up, badly. Using your own Latin pages to complete the logic here it goes. If an Octopus or Octopous from Greek with an -OS/-US ending word is assigned a declension in Latin it would be a Second Declension Greek feminine case to Latin transmutation of the word Octopus; according to your own pages on Latin declensions it follows that Octopi is the correct nominative case plural of Octopus. There is no third declension nominative case for a Greek or Latin word ending in -OS/-US, although there are other Greek endings in the third declension Latin for other stems in Greek. It follows that an Octopus in Latin translates to English in the time when scientific notation adopted Latin as the standard for natural description, if not much earlier than Lineaus, and that an Octopus from Greek through Latin to English has not changed as the rules for Latin Declension have not changed in two thousand years. An Octopus is one Octopus, whereas Octopi is the plural. If we are talking of Octopodes as a singular Latin form, that would be a First Declension masculine (Latin form) which makes the plural nominative case Octopodae. If Octopodes is meant as a plural of the word, it would be a third declension neuter making a singular form Octopodo; since, we know we don't use that in our ordinary terminology, I'm fairly certain we can rule that out as an option. Disregard this line as a result. If Octopus were a singular masculine noun in Latin it would still be Octopus/Octopi, and since the Latin and the Greek assumed Latin are the same, I'm pretty sure, we are coming to a logical conclusion that Octopus/Octopi is the longstanding correct version of the word, in English, Latin, and Greek. The information provided on the Octopus page is erroneous, please correct this as soon as possible. With Gratitude to Wikipedia for solving its own riddle. Thomas G. Higgins 67.158.204.253 (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Additionaly, if, and it is a big if, if Octopus is a Third Declension Latin-Greek assumed word, the following forms would be the case Octopus, Octopuses; if that is if the gender of the word itself is believed to be masculine. There is no evidence, as yet, that the word is of the masculine Greek form, so, it may be that the gender question is the cause of the confusion, not, to mention the possibility that the word is a feminine gender Greek word with the -OS/-US ending assumed into Latin in the 2nd Declension, resulting in Octopus/Octopi.

SIde by side then: Octopus/Octopi is 2nd Declension Latin/feminine Greek into Latin; Octopus/Octopuses is 3rd Declension masculine Greek into Latin;

The Etymology section cheerfully assumes that Octopus is a third declension masculine Greek into Latin rather than the more likely straight translation of the Greek word into Latin ending in -OS/-US. If, the compound Greek word Octo+Pous actually makes the word a masculine case by the possible fact that pous is a masculine word, then, maybe the argument is solved as a masculine translation into Latin. If not, then, it follows that the form of the word dictates the translation into Latin, meaning that Octopous is actually a feminine Greek word. That is something which I will get back to you all about later after I study Greek Declension.

Edit request on 15 September 2012

I mean, can you add the fact that the third heart: "Two branchial hearts pump blood through each of the two gills, while the third pumps blood through the body" is called a systemic heart? Sources:http://indianapublicmedia.org/amomentofscience/you-gotta-have-hearts/ 206.116.73.83 (talk) 03:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Done: by Diannaa --Breawycker public (talk) main account (talk) 20:48, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 21 October 2012

The Etymology Section of the Octopus page needs correction.

Using Wikipedia Latin pages as my reference guide for Latin Nouns. 1st declension nouns feminine singular and plural respectively end in these endings:-A,-AE; Greek assumed 1st declension: -E,-AE; Latin masc -ES,-AE; and Latin masc -AS,-AE. 2nd declension Nouns -masc -US, -I; or masc -R/-ER,-I; or neuter -UM,-A; or Greek feminine -OS/-US, -I; or Greek neuter -UM/-UN,-I 3rd Declension Nouns neuter -O,-ES; or neuter -N,-IS; or neuter +X-, +CT-ES; or neuter I stem +AL,-AI; or Greek assumed masc +,-ES; or Greek IS stem +IS, +ES

These Wikipedia case endings agree with Wheelock's Latin book, which is the book used by the University of Washington, Seattle, to teach Latin.

The point is this etymological section about Octopus being a third declension Latin Greek assumed ending is messed up, badly. Using your own Latin pages to complete the logic here it goes. If an Octopus or Octopous from Greek with an -OS/-US ending word is assigned a declension in Latin it would be a Second Declension Greek feminine case to Latin transmutation of the word Octopus; according to your own pages on Latin declensions it follows that Octopi is the correct nominative case plural of Octopus. There is no third declension nominative case for a Greek or Latin word ending in -OS/-US, although there are other Greek endings in the third declension Latin for other stems in Greek. It follows that an Octopus in Latin translates to English in the time when scientific notation adopted Latin as the standard for natural description, if not much earlier than Lineaus, and that an Octopus from Greek through Latin to English has not changed as the rules for Latin Declension have not changed in two thousand years. An Octopus is one Octopus, whereas Octopi is the plural.

If we are talking of Octopodes as a singular Latin form, that would be a First Declension masculine (Latin form) which makes the plural nominative case Octopodae. If Octopodes is meant as a plural of the word, it would be a third declension neuter making a singular form Octopodo; since, we know we don't use that in our ordinary terminology, I'm fairly certain we can rule that out as an option. Disregard this line as a result. If Octopus were a singular masculine noun in Latin it would still be Octopus/Octopi, and since the Latin and the Greek assumed Latin are the same, I'm pretty sure, we are coming to a logical conclusion that Octopus/Octopi is the longstanding correct version of the word, in English, Latin, and Greek.

The information provided on the Octopus page is erroneous, please correct this as soon as possible. With Gratitude to Wikipedia for solving its own riddle. Thomas G. Higgins 67.158.204.253 (talk) 01:35, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

 Not done

"If an Octopus or Octopous from Greek with an -OS/-US ending" <- This is where you are wrong. Octopus ends in -pous. It is a compound word of octō ("eight") and pēs ("foot"). . It does not end in -us nor -os as "Octop-" on its own is not a root word. Thus applying the second declension for the latter is inappropriate. Latin octopūs is third declension, as is the etymologically similar centipēs.

Usage in scientific Latin (back when Latin was the language of science) is third declension. Observe:

Postea de Octopodibus loquitur, quorum genera et species singillatim describit. Species quaelibet nota sinonymia diligentissima, Phrasi latina, descriptione, mensuris, variationibus coloris (prout ira, timore etc. animal afficitur), habitatione et moribus, vulgari denominatione, et historia insignitur. - Giovanni Giuseppe Bianconi, Repertorium italicum complectens zoologiam, 1853

In Sepiis, Octopodibus, Loliginibus, Argonautis ad branchiarum basin adest cor in utroque latere... - Jan van der Hoeven, Philosophia zoologica, 1864

Notice it is octopodibus, not octopōrum.

Ferussaccius vero primus fuit, qui ab hac usitata divisione discedit et aliam proposuit in Decapodia et Octopodia, tali ratione a caeteris generibus separans et secum invicem coniungens octopodem et Argonautam y quos posteriori divisioni adnumeravit. - Willem de Haan, Specimen philosophicum inaugurale, exhibens monographiam ammoniteorum et goniatiteorum, 1825

Again it's octopodem and octopodia, not octopum nor octopia.

Liceat nutem hic ea repetere, quae a Cuviero de anatomia horum animalium accepimus. Cerebrum Octopodis, Sepiae et Loliginis varia ratione cerebro animalium rubro sanguine praeditorum simile esse videtur. - Ernst Heinrich Weber, Anatomia comparata nervi sympathici, 1817

Octopodis, not octopī.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

According to the Citation for Octopus #39, that Octopus comes from Octopous, upon further review of the source, there is a 44% opinion that Octopous is a masculine 3rd Declension Greek noun, with 22% belief that Octopous might be Octopaus, making it a feminine third declension Greek nominative, alternatively, but there is no original ancient greek texts cited for confirmation of spelling and even though pous is a third declension masculine ending, there is no visual textual confirmation of that spelling to confirm that octopous is the form used anciently. If visual confirmation of the ancient texts can be produced for spelling then this page has an argument for the third declension masculine Greek into Latin argument. If that confirmation does not exist, the word Octopus can be construed either as a second declension Greek masculine or feminine noun. Until that is proven the case being made in the etymology section is unconfirmed.

Change the Etymology section to reflect the possible options for 2nd and 3rd declension greek and latin nouns as it applies specifically to the word Octopus/Octopi, or Octopus/Octopuses argument. Add a note that the source of the word Octopous reflects ambivalence in gender of the noun Octopus (m/f) v. Octopous (m. only). Explicitly state that there is no visual confirmation of ancient greek texts known to confirm the spelling of the word, and then state that the word Octopus came to English through the Latin forms which are feminine second declension (Octopus/Octopi) or masculine (Octopus/Octopuses), further state that gender in ancient languages cannot be determined without further study of the ancient texts. Establish that the sources sited do not confirm either form of the word Octopus or Octopous. Establish that the either/or nature of the original Greek word translated into Latin and borrowed into English came from Latin into English, and the more likely scenario for spelling is that Octopus comes as a second declension feminine Greek borrowed into Latin, until further evidence is presented. Do away with the entire etymology section until a definitive visual spelling of Octopous or Octopus can be found in the ancient Greek texts. Or, make it known that the debate depends on whether it is a feminine (2nd) or masculine (3rd) noun Greek word into Latin into English. 67.158.204.253 (talk) 02:51, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Please use your original posting for further discussion. Do not repeat your posts. Again no. You seem to be under the impression that octopus is an ancient word. It is not. We know perfectly where the term came from. It was not from the Romans nor the Ancient Greeks and borrowed into English. Like most scientific names, it is invented scientific Latin specifically to refer to organisms that had eight feet by Linnaeus in 1758. Original combination being Sepia octopus. Of course it does not exist in ancient texts. Compare with platypus, which is also in Latin and originally meant as a generic name for the animal (but was invalidated due to the name already in use for a genus of beetles). It refers to an animal that has never been seen by nor heard of by ancient Europeans. It is also erroneously written in plural in modern English as "platypi", a term that is widely acknowledged to be "pseudo-Latin".-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 03:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 16 January 2013

THe page says "octopuses" which is incorrect, the plural for octopus is octopi.

72.35.97.104 (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Not done: The article has an entire paragraph devoted to the debate over the proper plural form of "octopus". —KuyaBriBri^Talk 16:45, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 26 January 2013

This is minor. I would like to point out that there is at least one broken citation in this article - the one relating to optic glands, under the "Biology" heading. Broken citations are sometimes little more than a nuisance, but when you're doing research on the subject they can be very problematic. It would be helpful, therefore, if said citation link (citation 6) could be changed from what it currently is to http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17787564, which has an abstract on the document in question, "Hormonal inhibition of feeding and death in octopus: control by optic gland secretion." --Talvieno (talk) 16:25, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

I've added a link to the abstract at the end of the ref; however, the existing link seems fine, so perhaps you caught it at a duff moment. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:02, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 26 January 2013

Minor point. In the section on intelligence the article notes that the octopus, like other cephalopods, is regarded as an "honorary vertebrate" for the purposes of the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986, but the citation is to this page which is out of date and only refers to "any invertebrate of the species Octopus vulgaris...".

I think that the current version of that Act refers to "any living cephalopod" based on the amendment made by reg 3(a) of The Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 Amendment Regulations 2012 which came into force on 1 January 2013. The text of the article is accurate, but the reference provided isn't. As far as I know there is no publicly-available, consolidated version of the Act so I'm not sure what page is the best to link to. --Duke (talk) 16:46, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I recently edited this article to indicate the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 included only Octopus vulgaris among the invertebrates. Unfortunately, I did this before reading this Talk page and also before becoming aware of the 2012 ammendments. Can't the article be edited to "any living cephalopod" based on the link to reg 3(a)?__DrChrissy (talk) 20:29, 19 March 2013 (UTC)

Plural of octopus

I wonder whether the article is wrong to give "octopi" as one of the plurals for an octopus. I heard on The Unbelievable Truth on Monay 6 May that the true plural is either "octopuses" or "octopose" but not octopi. ACEOREVIVED (talk) 20:19, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

That's broadly right, but if you read the article, you'll see that it says that and more, explaining the reasons why in great detail. It can stay as it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:34, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 May 2013

The pluralization section contains the sentence "Currently, "octopuses" is the most common form in both the US and the UK" which seems suspicious to me, given the apparent prevalence (regardless of the correctness) of octopi. That needs a Citation Needed tag, or, even better, an actual citation. 71.212.100.200 (talk) 08:15, 27 May 2013 (UTC)

I've seen octopuses.

I've seen octopodes.

But I think I'll have seen everything

when I see octopi.

67.61.250.255 (talk) 03:43, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

It's extensively discussed in the third paragraph of that section, which cites Fowler, the Compact OED, and two other dictionaries. —Mark Dominus (talk) 15:32, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

Number of arms

The opening para states the octopus has "...four pairs of arms...". Is there a reason for it being stated this way? Why not just "...eight arms..."?__DrChrissy (talk) 17:57, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 December 2013

107.216.248.190 (talk) 01:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC) octopus - stub

Please format your request in a "change x to y" format, there is pretty much no request to evaluate here since you have provided two words inside of paired brackets but no indication of what you want done. I assume this has something to do with Template:Octopus-stub, but as this article is not a stub there would be no reason to add it here. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:58, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Octopities

While it may not be used, since Octopus comes from a Greek root, the correct plural would be Octopities, I think this should get added to the list of plurals.184.63.213.218 (talk) 03:26, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

This can't be right; psychiatrist and odontologist come from Greek roots too, but we definitely don't want to write psychiatroi or psychiatrides or whatever. A root is a fine thing but once it has been assimilated into English, plurals generally take English forms. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:41, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Work needed on the 'As food' section

The 'As food' section is close to WP:OR and citations have not been forthcoming. It must be possible to find sources for this - mediterranean cookery and travel books, for a start - so we should be able to write something better than this.

If the text does become shorter through removal of uncited claims, the 3 images in the section will look more clearly too many for the context. I'd suggest we ought probably only to have one image in the section, perhaps two if it stays at its present length or grows. What would other people like to do with the section? Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:37, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

I would like to suggest something a little radical. Perhaps the "As food" section should be a stand-alone article. My own belief is that many pages on animals on Wikipedia should be about the animals themselves, rather than our uses of them. There is a great tendency to crowd animal pages with text, and particularly images, with irrelevant or non-informative images of animals as food. Just this afternoon, I deleted from Chicken a tedious image of a roasted chicken and a fried egg! This was partly on the basis that there were main articles on Chickens as meat and Chickens as egg layers. So, I suggest a main article on Octopus as food which can have a gallery with as many images as gourmets are willing to tolerate. This would have the added advantage for Octopus of removing a section which is of inferior quality to the remainder - for some reason, this often happens when animals are discussed as food.__DrChrissy (talk) 20:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

To further support my suggestion above, take a look at Squid and Squid (food), Fish and Fish (food), Shrimp and Shrimp (food).__DrChrissy (talk) 21:42, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Why not? It would make perfect sense. Happy new year. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Triple use of Oxford Dictionaries

The troubled section on plurals is becoming rather rambling. The first sentence uses but does not name the Oxford dictionaries, naming octopi as wrong. Then a chunk claims 'octopi' is kind of ok, which the paragraph demonstrates it isn't. Then the Oxford English Dictionary is named to say it's wrong, followed nearly identically by the Oxford American Dictionary. This is at best somewhat repetitive, and at worst tendentious, making a source look more than it is. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 July 2014

an octopus is a two-legged six-armed animal Henazz (talk) 06:26, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Not done: as you have not cited reliable sources to back up your request. ;-) - Arjayay (talk) 07:04, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 July 2014

According to the following (http://www.americanscientist.org/science/pub/how-many-arms-does-an-octopus-have) An octopus has 6 arms and 2 legs.

Could you please update this.

Meiercaa (talk) 20:02, 28 July 2014 (UTC)

Not done for now: Already discussed here  NQ  talk 13:28, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Pluralization

Hello all, I just removed octopi as a formal pluralization from the beginning of the article. As discussed in the entomology section, it is incorrect. HarderResearch (talk) 00:10, 25 May 2014 (UTC)

      Excellent. Some folks are having similar issues with "syllabus" and "syllabi". People love shibboleth dog Latin.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.218.107.3 (talk) 16:19, 11 August 2014 (UTC) 

Broken link

The link to http://uninews.unimelb.edu.au/view.php?articleID=5755 (no. 5) is broken. Do you know where to find that article? Sincerely, RonnieV (talk) 22:52, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Found it, at http://archive.uninews.unimelb.edu.au/view-45622.html. Fixed in article. Sincerely, RonnieV (talk) 22:59, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Fourth Defense

In the section talking about an octopuses fourth defense, more can be said about the different situations in which they employ this. The octopus will mimic different animals in different situations. An example would be when attacked by a damselfish, the octopus will mimic a sea-snake. Most likely scaring the damselfish away because the sea-snake is a predator of the damselfish. Ignasiak.6 (talk) 00:32, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

No Improvements Needed?

From the top of the talk section: "Octopus has been listed as a level-4 vital article in Science. If you can improve it, please do."

I could improve it . . . but I can't, since the article seems to be locked.

Oh well... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 00:42, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 December 2014

Octopuses inhabit, not Octopuses inhabits; basic pluralization 76.174.226.194 (talk) 09:57, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Done and thanks Cannolis (talk) 10:35, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Senses

There are some dubious sounding claims made in the Senses section claiming octopi are lacking in proprioception and stereognosis. These parts both reference a single paper in 1978. I would think with a lot of the recent observations made in vivo (deliberate motions involving camouflage and mimicry which might suggest proprioception) and in vitro (an octopus's maze navigation and puzzle-solving abilities indicating stereognosis). These are off the top of my head and not my area of expertise. I'll have to go looking for papers to indicate otherwise, but if any experts on cephalopod cognition wanna take a crack at this you can be my guest.AnkhAnanku 00:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by AnkhAnanku (talk • contribs)

External links modified

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Semi-protected edit request on 26 November 2015

The third sentence in the first paragraph has an opening parentheses but no closing parentheses. There should be a parentheses instead of a comma after "mantle" Bravefoot (talk) 04:45, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

 Done Thanks for spotting it! A2soup (talk) 04:53, 27 November 2015 (UTC)

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Notability?

The food section, and food article, lack any mention of the fact that it is noteworthy that there is no ethical legislation on the consumption of cephalopods, whilst there is extensive legislation pertaining to experimentation and use in science. I find this very interesting personally but don't know whether it's notable enough for inclusion. I would guess it would be given that we have such effort in the scientific community--people who generally know their shit--to prevent inhumane treatment, but then outside of the scientific community we have people suggesting boiling them alive in water, or vivisection of and even whole consumption of living animals. Given their intelligence level this is quite a horrific 'cultural' or culinary tradition. It's also quite telling of our cultural obsessiveness around the cult of consumption and food, whereby we know X but do Y because we don't care about X's validity which has even further implications across our species habitual rejection of unconformable realities. So it's not only a very telling behaviour pertaining to the animal subject of the article, but of the way in which humans interact--and not just limited to the animal in question--but as a species. <!//– ☠ ʇdɯ0ɹd ɥsɐq ☠ // user // talk // twitter //–> 21:29, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree this is notable enough to include. I will have a look at it tomorrow. I have been involved in the Pain in fish, Pain in crustaceans, Pain in animals articles and for some time I have been thinking about writing a Pain in cephalopods article. DrChrissy ^(talk) 23:05, 14 April 2016 (UTC)

Re "the fact that it is noteworthy that there is no ethical legislation on the consumption of cephalopods": it is not enough to assert that this is noteworthy. We need WP:RS showing it. I am sure that can be found in the extensive vegetarian literature. The hard part is of course separating the wheat from the chaff. --Macrakis (talk) 02:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

--Macrakis (talk) 02:10, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

I intend to show inconsistency in legislation using RS. Your comments will be welcome when I edit the article. Even if consensus is that it is not noteworthy here, I'm sure it will be elsewhere. DrChrissy ^(talk) 16:53, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 May 2016

they live for 88 yeARS Jamie142628wj (talk) 19:52, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. --Cameron₁₁₅₉₈ ^(Talk) 21:54, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 October 2016

...even the octopuses that have the longest lifespan (the Giant Pacific Octopus) simply doesn't live long enough after the young are born..." This line should read "...simply don't live long enough..." The plural noun (octopuses) is not in agreement with verb "doesn't." It should be "don't." The phrase in parentheses does not affect the agreement.

67.183.138.190 (talk) 03:33, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Done Topher385 (talk) 11:10, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Octopus in Mythology

It might be noteworthy to discuss different myths and stories where the octopus is mentioned for those who are interested in the subject.Mejohnson19 (talk) 07:09, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

@Mejohnson19: sounds like a great idea. You're autoconfirmed - go ahead, be bold, and make a mythology section! Don't worry about it being perfect - as long as you use and cite some reliable sources, other editors (including myself) will be happy to clean up any problems. A2soup (talk) 15:36, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Octopus/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: FunkMonk (talk · contribs) 12:45, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

• Hi there, I'll review this soon. There doesn't seem to be much if any taxonomic history mentioned here, could we get some in-text authority for the scientific name, and maybe hear if there have been any historical disagreements on classification and content? FunkMonk (talk) 12:45, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for taking this. I'll get to taxonomy soon. LittleJerry (talk) 21:00, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I added in a sentence on the coining of the order Octopoda. I looked through the books I have and there doesn't seem to be much on taxonomy classification history. LittleJerry (talk) 16:43, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• "The term "octopus" may also be used to refer specifically to the genus Octopus." I think this could be moved to the etymology or taxonomy section.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Per practically all other featured articles about animals, I think the description/characteristics section should come before ecology/behaviour sections.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• On a related note, I don't see why the size section should be that far from the characteristics section. Preferably, there would be one physical characteristics section, and a separate one about behaviour and ecology. "Biology" seems so broad as to be meaningless; it would encompass the evolution section as well.

Separated sections. LittleJerry (talk) 01:01, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• There seems to be a mix of UK and US English, for example you have both "fibres" and "behavior", should be checked throughout.

I'm willing to go with UK English, I think it would be better if @Chiswick Chap: or @Cwmhiraeth: took this one. LittleJerry (talk) 13:33, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Alright, I see quite a few of these, also both has ise and ize. FunkMonk (talk) 14:38, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I have been through the article with my spellchecker, and I hope it is all British English now. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:13, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Nice, I see the titles of some of the sources have been "corrected" too, though, their original spellings should be retained. FunkMonk (talk) 21:54, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

There are also still ise/ize inconsistencies (in their various tenses).

FunkMonk (talk) 13:33, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Tried again! Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:35, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• "the head and foot are at one end" You should spell out and link "molluscan foot" by first mention, to avoid confusion.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:21, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• "where the blood remain inside blood vessels" Remains?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:33, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• "allows the arms to with some autonomy" To what?

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 13:33, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• You are inconsistent in whether you identify the species shown in photos and videos. Should do so in all.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 22:14, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• "these are about one metre long" Convert.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "senescence" Explain. There are quite a few other unfamiliar terms that could be explained, should be looked at throughout.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "cleavage is superficial" A bit hard to understand what this means.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• " the removal of both optic glands after spawning was found to result in the cessation of broodiness, the resumption of feeding, increased growth, and greatly extended lifespans" This is already briefly mentioned in the former section, perhaps they should be consolidated somehow.

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• You state they are not territorial, but how do they prevent other octopuses from stealing their dens?

I think they have several alternative dens. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• There is some inconsistency in whether you refer to species with their common name or scientific names first throughout the article, and whether you abbreviate or not. For example, you have "The giant Pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini", then "such as the giant Pacific octopus", then "which in the case of E. dofleini", and "Major items in the diet of Enteroctopus dofleini".

Done, as far as I can see. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• There is also a good deal of duplinking, and you shouldn't have to mention scientific names after a common name after first occurrence.

Removed. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "In 2005, some octopuses (Adopus aculeatus and Amphioctopus marginatus under current taxonomy) were found" Seems overly convoluted for no apparent reason. Why not just say "In 2005, Adopus aculeatus and Amphioctopus marginatus were found"...

Done. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:50, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Some octopuses, such as the mimic octopus, will move their arms in ways that emulate the shape and movements of other sea creatures." Needs source.

Added. LittleJerry (talk) 22:09, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Octopuses have several secondary defences (that they use once they have been seen by a predator):" Why parenthesis?

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 22:09, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• It seems Pseudomorph does not link to the intended destination.

In the article linked, there's a section "Pseudomorph in other fields" and discusses biology. The link went straight to that section for me. LittleJerry (talk) 19:24, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Cephalopods have existed for around 500 million years, although octopus ancestors were in the Carboniferous seas around 300 million years ago." Why "although"?

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 19:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Extant cephalopod phylogeny" State what method was used (genetics rather than morphology).

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 19:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• It would seem the distinct "eggshell" of the Argonaut (animal) would warrant mention in the article body, especially since you mention it in a caption?

Added. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:01, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• Why does the already long list under taxonomy show groups outside Octopoda?

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 19:24, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• You need to explain what RNA editing, otherwise the section doesn't make sense.

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 19:24, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "and behaviourally diverse of all invertebrates." Only stated in intro, which should not have unique info.

Its referring to the different behaviors like mimicking other sea creatures, using tools ect. LittleJerry (talk) 22:23, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

Seems I missed the "among" part... FunkMonk (talk) 18:22, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• "Around 300 species are recognized, which is over one-third of the total number of known cephalopod species." Likewise.

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 22:23, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• "and probably the Gorgon of ancient Greece also." Last also is redundant.

Removed. LittleJerry (talk) 19:27, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• It would seem more aspects of their biology could be mentioned in the intro, which seems a bit short for the article length.

Lead expanded. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:30, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• I think it is a bit excessive to have so many very specific examples of octopuses in popular culture in the intro. It should be much more of a general summary, not a list of media. Especially since relatively little intro text is devoted to their biology.

The lead is probably more balanced now without reducing this. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:30, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• "All octopuses are venomous" and " though some species are venomous". Contradiction.

Fixed. LittleJerry (talk) 19:43, 20 May 2017 (UTC)

• I would expect the "Legal protection" section to come after the "In science and technology" section, since the latter covers experimentation on octopuses to some extend.

Done. LittleJerry (talk) 20:33, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

• Some of the pop culture entries under human relations seem extremely WP:trivial. I'd expect there to be much broader things to say about octopuses in human culture, but I'll leave that discussion for the FAC. To me, much of the trivial stuff could be cut, leaving a shorter, yet more significant chunk of text, perhaps in fewer subsections. For example, why do we need to specify there's an octopus in Spongebob or Finding Dory? There are probably hundreds of octopuses in various cartoons.

Removed Finding Dory reference. I kept Spongebob since it is one of the notable and long lasting cartoon series.

I think we should go with the reviewer here, the last paragraph had a trivial tone compared with all the rest of the article, so although I'm sorry for the work done in creating it, I've removed it now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:13, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• You devote a great deal of text to how octopuses could theoretically be "farmed", yet say nothing about why this isn't done already, leaving the text rather pointless.

Trimmed down to one sentence. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:19, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

• All looks good now, one last thing, I was a bit sad to see the photo of the shelled argonaut go (since it is pretty unique looking), perhaps it could replace one of the images of similar finned octopuses under taxonomy? FunkMonk (talk) 09:34, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I think there's room for that! Image beside Taxonomy section. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:25, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Nice, that is all from me, will now pass. --FunkMonk (talk) 10:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Many thanks for the review. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:01, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

IPA pronunciation

Do we really want to list all the possible pronunciations of "octopus"? It is useful for sure but making the list exhaustive may not be what we want and I don't see a middle ground (either all variants or none). Cambridge dictionary lists three ways to pronounce it [1] and I expect that in at least some of Scotland, Ireland, Australia, India there are more forms. -- Martinkunev (talk) 21:12, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the middle ground looks like (/ˈɒktəpʊs/ or ~/pəs/) . The lead isn't a good place for many variations, but maybe they could go in a separate section. Siuenti (씨유엔티) 06:21, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Can they all change color?

For example a blue-ringed octopussy, can it change color? Because the lead implies they all can Siuenti (씨유엔티) 14:24, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

They can, as can all squids and cuttlefish. The blue-ringed octopus is well-known for "flashing" its rings a particularly bright blue when it feels threatened - see footage of it here. They aren't all blank canvases that can be literally any color, but they can all vary their color a lot. A2soup (talk) 15:12, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Small error correction

"Octopuses have numerous strategies for to defend themselves against predators,"

should be

"Octopuses have numerous strategies for defending themselves against predators," HeadPlug (talk) 17:22, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Avoid repetition

"their ability to jet quickly through the water, and their ability to hide." could be changed to "their abilities to jet quickly through the water and to hide." to avoid repetition. HeadPlug (talk) 17:30, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

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Non-basal

In one section it mentions "more basal cephs", might be worth adding to the evolution section that they are more evolved/divergent than others. 212.250.152.37 (talk) 06:34, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 June 2017

For the second paragraph of "External characteristics", I think mention of the skin should come first. The part about the body and its softness is a better lead-in to the flexibility of the arms. 174.124.157.108 (talk) 15:54, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Seems sensible. Done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 4 July 2017

Tnse abrahammeshak cbe (talk) 10:10, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. DRAGON BOOSTER ★ 10:15, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

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Citation needed tag

User:Nutster: The tagged material was added by User:LittleJerry here. DrKay (talk) 20:25, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, the material was and is correctly cited, so it's unclear why a tag should have been thought necessary. However, I've repeated the refs for clarity and removed the tag. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:32, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

Sex

Octopi have been observed having gay sex. Benjamin (talk) 10:34, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

References

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Locomotion

A recent July 2017 article says that Octopus have 3 methods of locomotion: jet propulsion, pushing/pulling along the bottom with arms, and motion by suckers alone.They can also move slowly by just using their suckers (Mather, Jennifer A; Dickel, Ludovic (2017-07-19). "Cephalopod complex cognition". Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences. 16: 131–137. doi:10.1016/j.cobeha.2017.06.008.).

"There are three sets of propulsion actions, used flexibly based somewhat on demands for speed. Octopuses use jet propulsion to move through the water [26]. The arms are used for push–pull locomotion, but with no specific gait or arm movement sequence in walking [28]. During walking, octopuses can also balance the necessity to maintain cryptic appearance with propulsion, even using only two arms for propulsion while holding others in camouflaging postures [29]. The eight arms are lined with suckers, and octopuses can move slowly across the substrate using just these suction cups [26]."

Reference 26 in that study describes the motion of the stalks holding the suckers (Mather JA, Alupay JS, 2016, An ethogram for Benthic Octopods (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) PMID:27078075).

This third set of propulsion actions, "move slowly across the substrate using just these suction cups," did not seem to me to be covered by the existing discussion of locomotion, so I added it and Rhinopias quickly reverted it, saying "This crawling behavior using their suckers is what the majority of the paragraph describes."

The pre-existing paragraph is based on Huffard 2006, which subdivides jet propulsion into backward (jet) or forward (swim) and walking into bipedal (walk) or more than 2 arms (crawl), resulting in 4 categories, without covering the purely sucker-stalk motion:

"Jet The octopus expels water from the mantle through the funnel, which is pointed away from the posterior mantle to propel the animal backward (led by the posterior end of the mantle). The body and arms trail behind the mantle and do not bear weight (although arms of some long-armed species do occasionally brush the bottom during jetting). Arms are held tightly together (Fig.·2A), in a V-formation, or spread laterally.

Swim The octopus expels water from the mantle through the funnel, which is pointed backward toward the posterior mantle to propel the animal forward (led by the head, eyes, and arm crown). Swimming may or may not incorporate undulations of the body and arms. No portion of the body rests on the bottom (Fig.·1B–D, Fig.·2B).

Crawl The octopus uses the sucker edge of more than two of eight arms to push and pull along the bottom in any direction. Each arm typically contacts the bottom at multiple points (Fig.·1F–M, Fig.·2C).

Bipedal walk/run The octopus pushes and/or rolls along the bottom using alternating movements of a single pair of arms [currently known only to be arm pair IV [(Huffard et al., 2005), Fig.·1E, Fig.·2D]."

I think Octopus locomotion is so important for both biology and robotics that we need to cover all 5 forms clearly, and the introductory paragraph should also mention Cirrate octopus' pumping, which is described in a later paragraph, and seems to be a 6th form of locomotion. Since Rhinopias did not understand the distinction I was making about motion with stalks alone, my version was not clear enough, so another try is needed. Kim9988 (talk) 17:30, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

Clearly each mode needs to be described, clearly distinguished from similar modes, and cited, in the article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 17:35, 29 December 2017 (UTC)

@Kim9988: I reverted your addition because I didn't see any distinction from what the section already stated. move slowly by just using their suckers is, at face value, a summary of the paragraph: "… move about by relatively slow crawling … When in no hurry … some of the suckers adhere …" A more descriptive edit summary would've been helpful, but it seems you're now proposing revisiting all of #Locomotion to make sure each mode is discussed separately.

I don't understand how the statement move slowly across the substrate using just these suction cups (quoted from the source above) is different than "crawling". I think I understand the technical distinction between push–pull locomotion and "slow-sucker-moving"… The source's statement shortly after the above quote Suckers alone can carry out tasks, such as passing a small object along an arm or tiptoeing along the substrate might allow us to clarify the distinction, but I think it's still lacking an explanation of how "tiptoeing" with suckers allows the animal to move without pulling with the arm muscles?

I guess it warrants a mention if we can distinguish the "crawling" and "tiptoeing", but I'm not sure if the whole section needs to be reorganized because most readers won't distinguish between crawling and tiptoeing (suckers/arms), or jetting and swimming (siphon). Just because something is present in scientific literature doesn't mean it's not WP:TOOMUCH or MOS:JARGON. We don't have an Octopus locomotion, though Animal locomotion § Aquatic covers octopus jetting but not arm/sucker assisted! If this detail is important to the field of robotics, it doesn't necessarily mean it belongs within Octopus. Rhinopias (talk) 23:58, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

@Rhinopias: Moving the arms is similar to mammals walking or crawling. On the other hand moving the suckers alone is not something we have any parallel for. It means leaving arms in a fixed position above the substrate, while each sucker on its stalk reaches forward, as shown from 18sec to 26sec in this video of Woods Hole research http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfTiHudkmc4&t=0m18s Snakes have an analogous system of moving with the skin muscles alone: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-snakes-straight-line.html . I can support either 6 means of locomotion, or 4: (A) jetting (forward or back), (B) arm motions (with 2 arms or more than 2 arms), (C) sucker motions, (D) pumping. It doesn't take much space to list all 6, to match the sources. Kim9988 (talk) 20:54, 13 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it could be 4 or 6 depending on how you view it. Why don't we call it 4 with variations, and modify the article to talk about methods A1 and A2, B1 and B2, C, D? Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:59, 14 January 2018 (UTC)

Monozygotic twins

It seems that we have here a situation of almost identical twins: Octopus and Octopus vulgaris aka Common octopus. Wouldn't be wise to remove one of the two or, otherwise, to dedicate one to the "Octopus vulgaris" topic and to move the other to the wider topic of "Octopoda"? This same section has been posted also to the Common octopus talk page. Carlotm (talk) 10:55, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

Good of you to be concerned. However, this article covers many species of octopus, indeed many genera, not only the common octopus. You will note if you look at the article that the great Pacific octopus and the venomous blue-ringed octopus feature prominently, for instance. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:44, 24 January 2018 (UTC)

That's why I suggested to move this page from the current name to a different one, e.g. "Octopoda". Carlotm (talk) 09:30, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Aha. Well, it's a non-starter, I'm afraid. Wikipedia has a detailed set of naming conventions and there is no doubt that 'octopus' is the right name for this familiar group of animals, and 'common octopus' for that one common species. Thanks all the same. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:32, 25 January 2018 (UTC)

Update Argonaut link

The "argonauts" link in the Distribution and Habitat section currently points to the Greek heroes, please update this to /Argonaut_(animal)

62.178.211.72 (talk) 21:16, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

 Already done NiciVampireHeart 21:27, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Attribution

Text and references copied from Octopus to Cephalopod limb See former article's history for a list of contributors. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 15:00, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Arm vs. Tentacle

As it stands, the lede states that octopuses have 8 arms, with a parenthetical saying "which are sometimes mistakenly called 'tentacles'". Apparently, 'tentacle' has a more specific meaning in zoology; however, since the claim that octopuses have 8 tentacles - rather than 8 arms - is so widely used, it seems more like 'tentacle' has an informal meaning and a technical meaning; referring to octopus arms as "tentacles" isn't a mistaken belief that they're tentacles, it's just using the informal definition.

I edited the article to replace the word 'mistakenly' with 'informally', but my edit was reverted by User:Rhinopias with the reasoning (to quote the edit summary) "it very well could be, but that'd be wrong. I can call the Sun a planet and not a star, but that doesn't make it "informal" over incorrect.".

I'm pretty sure that's different (calling the sun a planet isn't something done in conversation, formal or not), but I think it'd be easier to work it out here. That being what talk pages are for and all. Hppavilion1 (talk) 01:33, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

Oh, and I'd like to note that the article for tentacles itself uses the meaning where octopus arms are tentacles, noting the distinction but saying "In terms of this article however, both types of organs count as tentacles because in relevant ways they are structurally and functionally similar." I think that self-reference might violate the style guide, but that's beside the point. Hppavilion1 (talk) 01:36, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

I appreciate that my example doesn't seem like the same thing, but star/planet are terms that refer to distinct objects in the field of astronomy, much like tentacle/arm/cirrus are distinct in biology. Sure, it seems prescriptivist to say that people aren't allowed to call octopus arms tentacles, but this is an encyclopedia article which aims to be accurate. People can call octopus limbs by whatever term they want, but they're still arms. (which are sometimes mistakenly called "tentacles") is addressing the misconception early on when the subject is brought up. "Informal" would make it sound like it's still accurately describing the anatomy. Cephalopod arms are more complex anatomically and physiologically than tentacles, so it does a disservice to readers interested in octopuses to pretend that the two terms are the same in a biologically-focused article.

As for the interesting sentence in Tentacle, this article went through an incredibly intricate review process in which every word was examined. The article Tentacle has not, but also that sentence is very out of place… the reference that's immediately following it even disagrees with its sentiment. Rhinopias (talk) 01:53, 23 February 2018 (UTC)

User:Rhinopias is correct here. It is simply wrong to say that octopuses have tentacles. Octopuses having arms is not a formality, it is fact. Having tentacles is a misconception, even if widely used, not an informal usage, and the other article should be corrected to reflect that. Reywas92^Talk 05:13, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

But WP is not here to be prescriptive (which "mistakenly" is), but descriptive. In fact, I have never personally, ever, heard anyone talk of an octopus's "arms", and only ever of "tentacles". I'm English, which might make a difference. I notice that the SOED says an octopus has eight 'arms' (with oversized single quotes around it). According to a handy "book", an octopus has eight "arms", two of which are "particularly long and prehensile and can be retracted", and these are the "tentacles". If one is eating a part of an octopus's limb in a restaurant, is it immediately obviously to the non-zologist diner whether this is a "tentacle" or not? Would a normal, educated diner say "I'm eating an octopus tentacle at the moment", or "..an arm". I submit, "a tentacle", which is the non-technical term. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:18, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@Imaginatorium: this isn't linguistic prescription, it's anatomy. If you take issue with (which are sometimes mistakenly called "tentacles") then feel free to suggest an alternative way to write it, but we don't describe animal anatomy based on the general public's understanding of it rather than what's in reliable sources. In WP:WEIGHT: "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public." Also, I'm not sure which book you're reading, but octopuses don't have tentacles... that's the Decapodiformes. Rhinopias (talk) 16:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The point here isn't that we're claiming octopuses have tentacles- they don't, biologically speaking- the point is that 'mistakenly' is the wrong word- even if I know they have arms, not tentacles, I"m still going to say 'tentacles' depending on context. I'd hardly say someone is "mistakenly" using a term when they're aware of the distinction but don't care in that particular context. Hppavilion1 (talk) 07:23, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps "loosely referred to as tentacles", rather than "mistakenly". William Avery (talk) 08:26, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

"..referred to as tentacles, although by strict definition, they are not"? k kisses 11:33, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

We need a WP:RS that explains the erroneous use of "tentacles" when taxonomically is should be "arms." In fact, there is research that suggest they have two arms and six legs, often commonly and erroneously referred to as "tentacles". Thomas, David (12 Aug 2008). "Octopuses have two legs and six arms". The Telegraph. Retrieved July 30, 2018. To most of us it has always seemed obvious that an octopus has eight arms. Octopuses have two legs and six arms Claire Little, a marine expert from the Weymouth Sea Life Centre in Dorset, said: We've found that octopuses effectively have six arms and two legs 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:11, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Added sources and an explanatory note. Also rewrote lead. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 12:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Flaky non-scientific source, and any equation of cephalopod limbs with vertebrate arms or legs is purely by analogy, they aren't either. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:47, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Added a scientific source. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 13:16, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Everybody called them arms or tentacles. Never legs. Who knew? I tried to deal with that in the lead paragraph and the note. i added another source. Perhaps you have a better formulation? 13:35, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

Well it's far too much for the lead section. I'll have a look at it in slow time. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:59, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

It seems to me that the matter has been quite sufficiently aired in this thread; and that the very recent additions have accordingly rightly been reverted by other editors. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:03, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I somewhat agree, but I notice 'arms' has been changed to 'appendages' in the lead. "Traditionally called arms" is still correct. A source saying that two of the appendages are "effectively" legs doesn't change that. I'd settle for a change to 'limb' as a neutral, less polysyllabic, term. I wonder why we would get all caught up in awkward terminology over "appendages" not being homologous, but are still referring to the octopus eye as an eye. William Avery (talk) 09:47, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

I moved the leg section from the lead to the external characteristics section. The apparent insistence on calling them arms, without dealing with it and removing the many reliable sources, is misplaced. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 11:34, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

No it isn't. Some of the limbs functioning like vertebrate legs is irreverent to whether or not they should be called "arms". Tentacles on the other hand are a specific cephalopod structure that octopus don't have. LittleJerry (talk) 15:33, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Suckers

How many suckers (presuming they’re still called suckers) on each arm (or tentacle or whatever)? Pretty constant, or does it vary widely depending on species? MBG02 (talk) 04:38, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

The number varies by species. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:30, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Seems 200 is pretty normal (per arm), from Wiki and Google pictures; including the 1 gram Octopus wolfi. Agree? MBG02 (talk) 10:38, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

WP:OR. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:51, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Genome

New information. It could expand the article, not only of octopuses but also of squid and cuttlefish.

Octopuses have hundreds of genes that don’t appear in any other animals, including other mollusks. And octopuses also have more genes that code proteins than humans do: 33,000 compared to fewer than 27,000 in humans.

The cells of octopuses, squid and cuttlefish have the ability to edit their RNA, rather than just translating it into proteins.

http://home.bt.com/news/science-news/dont-freak-out-but-scientists-think-octopuses-might-be-aliens-after-dna-study-11363997587287
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/cephalopod-gene-editing/
https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/the_octopus_gen/

de novo (“out of nowhere”) origination https://evolutionnews.org/2015/08/the_octopus_gen/

DNA is highly rearranged – like cards shuffled and reshuffled in a pack – containing numerous so-called “jumping genes” that can leap around the genome. http://home.bt.com/news/science-news/dont-freak-out-but-scientists-think-octopuses-might-be-aliens-after-dna-study-11363997587287 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.149.61.151 (talk) 21:06, 22 February 2019 (UTC)

Broken Link

The link to "see text" is supposed to go to a section called taxonomy, but that appears to be deleted and the link goes nowhere. Hmm... where is the list of families? Mattximus (talk) 23:48, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

"Tantacle" as a General Term vs. "Tentacle" as a Cephalopod-specific Biological Term

I disagree to some extent with the consideration of "tentacle" as an incorrect term. I would argue that it depends on the scope of the topic.

When in the context of biology, specifically of cephalopods, it is necessary to use separate words to form a distinction between limbs of different anatomy and function. However, when such a biological distinction/specification isn't necessary, "tentacle" may be used as an umbrella term for cephalopod limbs.

My first argument for this is that the vast majority of English speakers will refer to a cephalopod limb as a "tentacle" in a general context. While it could be argued that the vast majority are wrong, the word 'tentacle' has become a de facto term to refer to such a limb. If a person were to write a book and one of the characters found the arm of some kind of squid or octopus on the beach, I doubt the book would say, 'He found a severed arm on the beach." Wiktionary describes "tentacle" as "An elongated, boneless, flexible organ or limb of some animals, such as the octopus and squid."

Even this article makes reference to an octopus having tentacles. It says: "The terrifyingly powerful Gorgon of Greek mythology has been thought to have been inspired by the octopus or squid, the octopus itself representing the severed head of Medusa, the beak as the protruding tongue and fangs, and its tentacles as the snakes." The article is contradicting itself by using a term it deems incorrect.

My next argument is that the general biological definition of "tentacle" defines things dissimilar to cephalopod limbs. A "feeding tentacle" and and "arm" have far more in common with each other than they do with the tentacles of a cnidarian. It makes no sense to refer to a hair like appendage covered in stinging cells as a tentacle while claiming it is incorrect to refer to any cephalopod limb as a tentacle.

If no one has any objections, I would like to see this edited and cleared up.

AbyssopalegicIdeas (talk) 03:14, 13 July 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 August 2020

Please change fishes to fish, the latter being the correct plural form Ngbusca (talk) 05:21, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. See wikt:fishes, which is the sense being used here. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 01:49, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 January 2021

VXVXVsfc (talk) 15:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

sfsdgsdg

This makes no sense; you need to specify what needs to be changed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

References

@Chiswick Chap: Please see WP:SECONDARY. Any objections to WP:SECONDARY can be discussed there. Invasive Spices (talk) 18:37, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

@Invasive Spices: I note your rapid reversion, made while pretending to be discussing the issue but in fact wrongly pointing me and anyone else to an irrelevant Wikipedia policy, which you have failed to understand. Per the status quo ante, it would be entirely appropriate to revert your additions until this discussion was complete, but I will hold off on that for now.

What I removed were two subsidiary reports, depending wholly for their facts on the scientific report which was also cited. Those reports thus added nothing to the scientific source, while giving a WP:UNDUE impression that multiple and apparently independent sources had studied the matter. In a science article, news sources, even in reputable newspapers and magazines, usually are not worth citing if the actual scientific source is available. The news sources are "secondary" in the weak sense that they do not have access to the scientific evidence other than via the primary scientific report. "Secondary" in the strong sense for a science article means a systematic review which independently assesses the scientific method and quality of evidence, or a review article in a major journal comparing the research with other work; the news reports here were certainly not of that kind. I do hope this is clear. LittleJerry, Cwmhiraeth. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:00, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

• I see this will need other people involved.

I note your rapid reversion, made while pretending to be discussing the issue but in fact wrongly pointing me and anyone else to an irrelevant Wikipedia policy, which you have failed to understand.

Unnecessary aspersions.

Per the ''status quo ante'', it would be entirely appropriate to revert your additions until this discussion was complete, but I will hold off on that for now.

Edit warring just to edit war seems like a bad idea.

What I removed were two subsidiary reports, depending wholly for their facts on the scientific report which was also cited. ... In a science article, news sources, even in reputable newspapers and magazines, usually are not worth citing if the actual scientific source is available. The news sources are "secondary" in the weak sense that they do not have access to the scientific evidence other than via the primary scientific report. "Secondary" in the strong sense for a science article means a systematic review which independently assesses the scientific method and quality of evidence, or a review article in a major journal comparing the research with other work; the news reports here were certainly not of that kind.

News articles are used all the time on WP.

Those reports thus added nothing to the scientific source, while giving a WP:UNDUE impression that multiple and apparently independent sources had studied the matter.

If someone thinks that each citation on WP is always an independent science publication from entirely unrelated observations then that's their problem.

octopuses

What? I didn't change that.

Your insertion of notes into the article is frankly rude

My what?

Your insertion of notes into the article is frankly rude, given the article's maturity and the many hours that editors including LittleJerry, Cwmhiraeth and myself have devoted to it,

[[WP:OWN]]

and the fact that it has been formally reviewed to FA level.

[[WP:NOTPAPER]] Invasive Spices (talk) 19:43, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Um, this is a scientific article, and for the single claim you added, there is a scientific source, so any sources secondary to that are both redundant and useless, as they a) add nothing and b) give the impression of adding something when they do not, that's all. News sources are often splendid, and indeed necessary for recording many kinds of events, but not in the circumstances here. On the "octapodes" I saw you had in fact left it in, so there's nothing to be said, I withdrew the comment before you replied to it. Chiswick Chap (talk) 20:02, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Agree that it is generally not necessary to add news coverage that just rehashes material already referenced via the primary peer-reviewed paper. It sometimes makes sense when the primary source is so technical that the average reader may not understand it, but that's hardly the case here - it just feels like reference bombing, which is not a good look and which we try to avoid. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 19:17, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Plural

Please change octopuses to octopi, which according to the dictionary and the Latin is the correct term. To quote, Latin Endings for Latin Words Octopi appears to be the oldest of the three main plurals, dating back to the early 19th century. The -i ending comes from the belief that words of Latin origin should have Latin ending in English (while octopus may ultimately come from Greek it had a stay in New Latin before arriving here)." This is from https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-many-plurals-of-octopus-octopi-octopuses-octopodes. Thank-you. 97.69.220.102 (talk) 15:42, 27 October 2020 (UTC)Marisa

The primary plural version given by dictionaries is 'octopuses'. If it's the variant most commonly used in modern English then we try to use that. – Thjarkur (talk) 15:53, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

May I suggest adding "plural octopuses or octopi"? I Think that's the way most dictionaries have it, anyway, and "octopi" is hardly rare. I hope that sounds okay to everyone! 2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:25C2:FD43:EFAE:C84C (talk) 19:05, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:25C2:FD43:EFAE:C84C: take a look at the Etymology and pluralisation section that specifically states The alternative plural "octopi" is considered grammatically incorrect because it wrongly assumes that octopus is a Latin second declension "-us" noun or adjective when, in either Greek or Latin, it is a third declension noun. However, I did replace the "(plural octopuses)" with (plural octopuses) as discussed in the RfC at the bottom of this talk page. - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 19:29, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

@Dynamiccookies: Yes, I agree with that analysis, and so if you prefer to leave it at just "Octopuses" that's fine with me, but my reason for including "Octopi," despite the misconception it revolves around, was based on grounds of Linguistic description, because I think it's fairly commonly used, but I suppose nowadays not as accepted as "octopuses." Either way is fine. I appreciate the discussion! 2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:25C2:FD43:EFAE:C84C (talk) 02:39, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

@2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:25C2:FD43:EFAE:C84C: Personally, I don't see any reason the Linguistic description topic of "octopi" couldn't be added to the Etymology and pluralisation section of the page. I still plan to expand that section with information from the The Many Plurals of 'Octopus' site listed above and below on this page. The more we expand the information, the better the article becomes. - Dynamiccookies (talk | contribs) 04:10, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

---

I have a couple suggestions regarding the pluralisation I'd like to discuss before adding them:

• I think it would be helpful to link the pluralisation within the first sentence to the 'Etymology and pluralisation' header on the page so that others may quickly reference the detailed reasoning behind using octopuses as the primary pluralisation.
• I would also like to suggest expanding the 'Etymology and pluralisation' section with even more detailed information and history of the different pluralisation usages using the "The Many Plurals of 'Octopus'" article on Merriam-Webster.com as it gives excellent information and history around this topic. However, I wanted to bring it up here before simply adding the information as it seems like this article focuses more on the Oxford dictionary rather than Merriam-Webster.

Lastly a note: Reference #12 is no longer pointing to the intended location. I marked it as a dead link and wanted to let others know about it. - Dynamiccookies (talk) 20:05, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

@Dynamiccookies: I've re-closed the edit request template - edit requests aren't for generating discussion, but rather are used to implement edits already supported by consensus. See WP:EDITXY. If you want to solicit feedback and nobody's responding here, you may want to start an RFC. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 16:47, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

References

Request for Comment: Enhancing Pluralisation Section

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

A summary of the debate may be found at the bottom of the discussion.

---

This is a two part RfC.

1. Would it be helpful to internally link the pluralisation within the first sentence to the 'Etymology and pluralisation' header?
   • Example: "The octopus (plural octopuses) is a soft-bodied..."
   • Reasoning: The correct pluralisation of 'octopus' is a fairly controversial topic, and linking the very first occurrence of it in the article to the section explaining pluralisation could help clear up any confusion.
2. Is Merriam-Webster a valid source on this topic, as I'm seeing the Oxford dictionary being the primary dictionary source throughout this article instead?
   • Specifically, the article "The Many Plurals of 'Octopus'" has some very good information that should be included and cited.
   • Currently, there are six separate sources from the Oxford dictionary, whereas there is only one from Merriam-Webster, and it's a dead link.

- Dynamiccookies (talk) 18:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)

• 1. Yes - Now, I have no way of proving this, but I'd be willing to bet that a non-trivial number of people coming to this article do so precisely to check on the correct plural of octopus. Having an internal link that easily takes you to that information makes sense. 2. Yes - Why wouldn't it be? PraiseVivec (talk) 13:31, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• 1. Yes, because, as PraiseVivec mentioned, a lot of people are probably looking for the pluralization of octopus in particular and won't want to scroll through the whole article. 2. Yes, no reason not to use Merriam-Webster as well. Pupsterlove02 talk • contribs 15:55, 28 January 2021 (UTC)
• Yes to 1 & 2 per Pupsterlove02 and PraiseVivec - Idealigic (talk) 16:33, 10 February 2021 (UTC)
• Comment. I’m pedantic, so I use octopodes, but overall for the plural thing, in my opinion, it should list all three commonly-ish used plurals; Octopuses, Octopi, and Octopodes. But Yes to both. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 4D4850 (talk • contribs) 15:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Yes the plural is incredibly relevant and our article on it should be linked in the lead. Elliot321 (talk | contribs) 19:23, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• Yes to both per above.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 14:05, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• I've slightly rewritten this to make explicit there are variants (a whole section in the article would seem to justify more than 3 words in the lead about it). I've included the MW page on many plurals (independently of all of this). Cheers, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 03:08, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Possible addition to "Behaviour" or "Nervous system" sections

In the news recently. Cyclic alternation of quiet and active sleep states in the octopus Mapsax (talk) 23:17, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap? LittleJerry (talk) 22:03, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. Well, at least we can identify the primary research paper here. We could possibly add a claim based on one paper but it would really be better to wait for confirmation and a reliable review article. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:25, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Origination time wrong

The origination time is way off, Octopus split from vampire squid during the Triassic, and split from other members of the Muensterelloidea during the Jurassic per The Muensterelloidea: phylogeny and character evolution of Mesozoic stem octopods and First Middle–Late Jurassic gladius vestiges provide new evidence on the detailed origin of incirrate and cirrate octopuses (Coleoidea). Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:58, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Cephalopod origin and evolution: A congruent picture emerging from fossils, development and molecules states that The molecular clocks suggest that the Carboniferous putative crown group coleoids (Pohlsepia, Shimanskya) [63, 64] should be interpreted as stem group coleoids, but this also requires further morphologic and systematic scrutiny. While First Middle–Late Jurassic gladius vestiges provide new evidence on the detailed origin of incirrate and cirrate octopuses (Coleoidea) states: This approach [morphometric analysis of the gladius] does not take into account the Carboniferous taxon Pohlsepia Kluessendorf and Doyle 2000, whose poorly preserved remains without any evidence of a shell rudiment have originally been classifed as a Palaeozoic cirrate octopus. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:38, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I've updated the article and added citations. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:10, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

Octopus timeline

If you go up to the infobox in octopus. It says temporal range middle Jurassic to present.

170,000,000 years ago - The first true octopuses showed up but however, they have shells on their back. Like Turtles, Crabs and Nautilus.

140,000,000 years ago - The octopuses lost their shells. This is when basically the last update on octopuses happened and it all happened in the Cretaceous.

Do please put number on the temporal range. AnuranEmpire (talk) 19:22, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 August 2021

Can I put temporal range by 170 mya to present please? AnuranEmpire (talk) 19:15, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 August 2021

The above pluralization only refers to the British standard and even the American dictionary referenced is an Oxford product. Merriam-Webster states that the American pluralization standard recognizes both the term “octopi” and “octopuses” (as well as the rarer “octopode”).

Could this please be updated to reflect both the American as well as the English standard? Crowscall (talk) 13:25, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: It's covered in the article already at Octopus#Etymology and pluralisation. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:31, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

References

Update temporal range?

The article says Octopus evolved in the mid Jurassic, but a new discovery shows they were around earlier. Should we update? Octopus ancestors lived before dinosaur era, study shows ThetaMinusSinTheta (talk) 19:17, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, ancestors would tend to be older than their descendants, wouldn't they now. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:27, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

Add a space before commas

At the start of the article, there isn’t a comma between octopuses and octopi Ediefalcopuppy (talk) 22:52, 28 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:23, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Neutrality of pluralization section

Came here after being told all my life to say octopi. Just easiest to wiki first. What have I become? Anyway, didn’t expect the section to be at the top. As I read, it felt less like Wikipedia and more like someone’s personal grief about the pluralization rules. It’s rather aggressive for these articles. Could it be wordsmithed to something a bit more neutral in tone? I don’t have the ability with all those citations linked in but I’m sure someone does. Quickstrike85 (talk) 13:55, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Okay well you were told all your life incorrectly but now you know the linguistics here! And etymology/language sections are pretty much always at the top. Reywas92^Talk 14:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

Playing with the article's talk about pluralization

There's an HTML comment at the top of the article saying not to change "octopuses" to "octopi". Whoever wrote it must note that someone might make an edit that not only changes all non-mention uses of "octopuses" to "octopi", but also changes:

The alternative plural "octopi" is considered grammatically incorrect because it wrongly assumes that octopus is a Latin second declension "-us" noun...

...to...

The alternative plural "octopuses" is considered grammatically incorrect because it wrongly assumes that octopus is a native English word...

Do you understand this as a valid edit?? (The ellipsis at the end suggests that I don't know what would follow it should the edit be.) For anyone who sees this talk page post, please try to look for a way to put something in this article that cannot be altered to reflect the "octopi is correct" point of view. This section shows that the main sentence talking about the plural "octopi" can. Georgia guy (talk) 11:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

No, not a valid edit, because (1) the vast majority of nouns English borrows from other languages have regular English plurals; and (2) those who oppose the plural octopi do so because they are educated enough to know that it is not one of that class of Latin borrowings that changes singular -us to plural -i. Koro Neil (talk) 02:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Only way to prevent editing is RPP, and we'd need to demonstrate the need for that Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:30, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Danger to Humans

In the Danger to Humans section it says all octopus are venomous but only a specific kind is lethal to humans. Then, in the same para, it goes on with sentences about "bites" doing this and that, and bites occurring here and there. But it's not clear if the topic has changed to the one lethal type of octo, or if it's discussing bites, in general, at that point. Probably needs sentences to either start with, "[type] octopus bites..." do this and that. Or it needs to just be a para, specifically, and only about that type. 142.196.240.158 (talk) 21:48, 17 July 2023 (UTC)