Table Mountain (Vladikavkaz, Russia) - detailed description, location, reviews, photos and videos.
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Table Mountain is depicted on the coat of arms of Vladikavkaz and is clearly visible from the city. It is also present on the coat of arms of the Republic of Ingushetia, as it stands on its border with North Ossetia-Alania. This is one of the largest peaks of the Rocky Range of the Caucasus Mountains, its height is about 3000 m.
Table mountains or tabletop mountains are considered the oldest geological formations. Their feature is a flat top and steep slopes; this shape really resembles a table.
The Caucasian Table Mountain has always been revered by local residents; it was an analogue of the Greek Olympus, that is, it was considered the place of residence of the gods. The ruins of many sanctuaries, mainly from the 10th to 18th centuries, have been preserved on the mountain. The oldest of them, Myat-Seli, dates back to the 4th-8th centuries.
There are hiking trails on the mountain, climbing which takes several hours, but does not require special physical training or equipment. The most convenient of them starts from Ingushetia and is called the “path of ancestors”; mass ascents of up to 300 people are organized along it simultaneously.
Practical information
Address: Republic of North Ossetia - Alania, Prigorodny district. GPS coordinates: 42.868331; 44.703331.
The most convenient way to get to Table Mountain is by car; the road from Vladikavkaz will take about 40 minutes. You need to drive along the A-161 highway (Georgian Military Road), then turn onto P-109 and move to the village of Beini, where the road ends.
Along the way you will encounter several checkpoints where only your Russian passport is checked.
Until recently, climbing Mount Stolovaya, which towers above the capital of North Ossetia and is clearly visible from many places in Ingushetia, was difficult for ordinary tourists, but after travel with passes was canceled in the Dzheirakhsky district of Ingushetia and the decision was made to develop tourism, any physically active person without special permission and without special tourist equipment, he can climb to the top of this mountain, from where magnificent views of the surrounding area open up; and will come down the same day. In this post I will try to give a description of the route and tips based on my little experience.
Route description
1. Mount Stolovaya is located on the border of North Ossetia and Ingushetia. There are several options for climbing it, incl. including from the north (Ossetian side), however, all of them are designed for prepared tourists, and only one option is simple, from the Ingushetia side, from the rural settlement of Beyni, along a clearly visible road, which the Ingush call the “path of ancestors”. Mass ascents of 100-300 people at a time have long been carried out along it.If the route starts in Vladikavkaz, then you need to drive along the Georgian military road to the village of Beini; by a regular car it can take 40 minutes.
2. Turn left after the village of Chmi along the bridge over the Terek River leading to the entrance to the territory of the Dzheirakhsky district of Ingushetia. This is a special region, it borders with Georgia, so there are 7 border outposts here, and at the checkpoint, beautifully designed in the form of a tower arch, each person entering is checked for a Russian passport (this is what is needed and only this, no other special permits are required) .
By the way, thanks to border control (until 2013, entry into the area was only with passes issued by the FSB) and the fact that no more than 3 thousand residents live in the area, the Dzheyrakh district was and is one of the quietest in the North Caucasus; there were terrorist attacks and major criminal incidents.
3. After the village of Dzheirakh, the road leads first down and then to the right, turning to Beini.
4. The previous photo, and this one was taken from the window of a room at the Armkhi health and recreation complex, from here almost the entire route up the mountain is visible:
The ascent can be roughly divided into five stages.
- You can climb to the village of Beyni (1580 meters) by any vehicle - this segment of the route is highlighted in red on the maps.
- From Beini to the foot of the mountain (serpentine) you can climb by SUV - on the maps this segment of the path is highlighted in yellow. Not every tourist has an SUV, so most often this path is walked; it takes 2-3 hours (all walking routes are indicated in blue).
- The steepest and most difficult section of the road is the serpentine, which leads to the saddle of the mountain. It may take about an hour and a half.
- After climbing the saddle, the trail turns left and leads to the old pagan temple of Myat-Seli (2560 meters above sea level), which can be reached in 40 minutes.
- Finally, from Myat-Seli to the top of Stolovaya (3003 meters) - half a kilometer of altitude, or two hours at a calm pace. From below, from the foot, this path is not visible.
6. View of Beyni from the Armkhi health center:
7. View of Myat-Seli from the Armkhi health center:
8. The village of Beyni is small, 80 people permanently live in it, after leaving the village there is a tower complex, the road to the right leads to the foot of the mountain to climb, straight to the towers, and to the left there is a tent camp where you can arrange a parking lot.
9. The tent camp was built at the beginning of the tourist season, there are four permanent tents, two toilets and showers are equipped. I can’t say whether the use of stationary tents is free (I heard information that the rental price per day is 750 rubles), but tourists can put theirs nearby absolutely free:
10-12. The road to the serpentine has a slight slope, it is not difficult, but quite long. On the descent, if desired, you can shorten it by moving in a straight line, but on the ascent this is undesirable, because This will take the energy that would be required on the serpentine.
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13. One and a half kilometers from Beini there is a spring from which you need to stock up on water. Further, up to the top there will be no water.
14-15. The serpentine path is well-trodden, there are stones on it, so you need to be careful when descending so as not to accidentally trip.
16. The serpentine leads to the saddle of the mountain, but to get to the top, you need to turn left when the path forks, without climbing to the saddle itself. If you continue moving straight, you can come to an old iron booth, which was previously used for organizing mobile communications. Now the communications tower has been moved higher, to the mountain on the right, and the old booth is empty, there is nothing in it except garbage. In the most extreme case, you can spend the night in it, but I would not recommend it - our group of three people, who made an evening ascent, and got up here after sunset, seeing the condition of the booth, decided not to spend the night here, but to move on, despite the night time days.
17. From the saddle there is a smooth ascent with a slight slope to Myat-Seli, along one of the well-trodden paths. In one place on the trail there will be a barbed wire fence (it is made to restrict the movement of domestic animals), you can either try to go around the fence from the side, or open the gate.
18. Myat-Seli pagan temple, many tourists end their climb here. The peculiarity of this place is the strong gusty wind.
19. The temple has dimensions of 6x4 meters, two sections, you can spend the night inside. There are two small benches, a table, four niches in the walls, some tourists leave iron mugs, candles, spoons, unused plastic utensils here, so don’t forget to check everything, and most importantly, don’t be pigs and take all your own garbage with you, nothing without leaving here.
21. If you continue moving west from Myat-Seli, you can go down to a small lake. But to save energy, I recommend going around it and going up to the ruins of the second temple, Myater-Dala, 200 meters to the north. From this place from the mountain you can already see the villages Sunzha, Ali-Yurt, Surkhakhi, Ekazhevo, in the distance with binoculars or a good camera you can see Plievo, Karabulak, Ordzhonikidzevskaya, and also capture a few buildings of Magas (the view is blocked by the rocks).
22. The ascent should be carried out along the high (northern) part of the plateau; it is generally not difficult. If you go down to the bottom of the plateau, you can see Dzheirakh, Ezmi and the Georgian military road.
23. At an altitude of 2900 meters, it may be difficult to find a narrow passage between the rocks (2 meters wide); you should look for it along a well-trodden path.
At the very top there is an Internet communications tower, from here in good weather Vladikavkaz and other settlements are visible.
The descent along the same road as the ascent usually takes one and a half to two times faster than the ascent.
Climbing to the top of the mountain and descending takes the entire daylight hours. The best time for hiking is summer; in June, Stolovaya is free of snow (in May it is still there), at this time the temperature during the day ranges from 18 to 30 degrees.If you are planning a one-day hike, then the ascent from Beini must begin at 6 o’clock in the morning. To do this, you can use one of the options:
1) arrive to Beini in your own vehicle very early in the morning; for this you need to leave Vladikavkaz around 5 am.
2) arrive to Beini in your own vehicle the night before, set up a tent, spend the night, and start climbing in the morning.
3) arrive in Dzheirakh the day before using your own or public transport, rent a room at the Armkhi health resort (price 1,500 rubles per person), and in the evening negotiate with local residents for a ride to Beyni in the morning.
Without any doubt, you should definitely take with you on the climb:
1) Sturdy sneakers, T-shirt, sweatshirt, raincoat (the weather in the mountains changes often).
2) Sun protection - glasses, and either clothing that covers your arms and neck (a hat) to prevent sunburn, or sunscreen.
3) A supply of food for a picnic lunch, an empty plastic bottle to fill with water at the spring (I recommend two liters per person per day)
4) Garbage bag, let's keep the mountains clean!
It is highly recommended to take:
1) Trekking boots instead of sneakers, they will be especially useful when descending.
2) Trekking poles, they take a lot of pressure in the mountains. If you don’t have special hiking poles with you, I recommend finding and taking any wooden ones (that’s what we did).
3) If you (like me) have problems with your knees, you can put an elastic bandage on them in advance.
When climbing (to the saddle), it is highly not recommended to try to “shorten” the path, i.e. go straight up the mountain, avoiding the zigzag path. Despite the apparent advantage of shortening the path, this wastes a lot of energy; I know of several cases where physically active people who chose this type of climb ultimately did not make it, but weaker people walking along the trail did.
If you are planning a hike for more than a day with an overnight stay in the mountains, then I can give the following recommendations in addition.
1) Get up either early in the morning (at 6 am, as in the one-day option), or in the evening, at 16-17 hours, i.e. during the hours when the sun shines least.
2) Accommodate the night in Myat-Seli or within its boundaries, i.e. in an area fenced off from domestic animals (cows and horses graze on the mountain).
3) It will take you about 14:00 to reach the top, at which time you will have the best view of Vladikavkaz.
4) If you have several SIM cards, when going, give preference to Beeline and Megafon. MTS is working unstably.
5) It is recommended to notify the Beini administration about your trip. Don't walk alone, mountains don't forgive mistakes.
You should take with you:
1) A set of clothes and sleeping bags that keep the temperature at 0 degrees - at an altitude of 2500 this is the temperature at night even in summer.
2) A tent, it will help even if you spend the night in Myat-Seli, because... the temple has no doors and is blown through (despite the fact that the entrance can be covered with a table, and the second window is covered with plastic film)
3) Dry fuel. There is no wood on the top, or it may be damp, so it is better to buy a special set of “dry firewood” in the store.
4) Naturally, you also need to take a kettle, bowl, spoon, fork and a good knife)
5) Headlamp, and, if possible, other means of lighting, such as chemical light sources (glow sticks).
6) A seat and a polyethylene foam mat, this makes life easier)
7) First aid kit.
A few words about the situation in the region. Dzheirakh, as I wrote, was previously a closed border area, there were no terrorist attacks, there was a small population, so the likelihood of getting into a criminal situation, in my opinion, is minimal (in any case, orders of magnitude less than, for example, in Moscow). The Ingush are for the most part very hospitable, they love to meet people and invite them home for tea) I was in the mountains for a total of 10 days, and almost all the time I studied the mountains on my own, i.e. alone, hung with expensive photographic equipment and without security), no troubles happened to me.
Actually, that's all for now :)
I will update and supplement this entry as much as possible, I will be glad to receive clarifications and questions!
I will post a photo report from our trip to the Canteen in June within a month.
Happy hiking! :)
Giant octopuses are real and well-studied animals. Their scientific classification is as follows: the type to which they belong is called Mollusks, class - Cephalopods, order - Octopuses. The family they belong to is Octopodidae, genus Enteroctopus, species giant octopus.
Such a comprehensive description. It can be added that scientists who study soft-bodied or molluscs are called malacologists.
Habitat
Giant octopuses love cold water; they find it comfortable when it is heated from 5 to 12 degrees Celsius. It is natural to assume that this species of cephalopod does not occur in tropical seas. Their natural habitat is the northern waters of the Pacific Ocean. It extends from the Korean Peninsula and Japan to Primorye and southern Sakhalin. In addition, they are found near the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka, the Commander and Aleutian Islands. On the American coast they can be found all the way to California.
Main distinguishing feature
The most common species are giant octopuses weighing from 1 to 10 kilograms and large individuals up to 30 kg. This octopus reaches 150 cm in length. Less common, but they are registered, are specimens weighing up to 50 kg and measuring up to 3 meters. There is evidence of nine-meter creatures.
How do giant octopuses work? Their distinctive feature is the funnel organ (it is inherent in all octopuses), which in this species has a W-shape. This organ promotes the exchange of water in the gills, and it is also the motor apparatus of the octopus. How does movement happen? The cephalopod draws water into the mantle and compresses its muscles, as a result of which the water is forcefully pushed through the funnel located in the gills through the funnel organ, which is a tube, the narrowed end of which is brought out. Thanks to this “jet engine,” the octopus moves backwards. Thanks to him, at the moment of fright, the octopus throws ink from the ink sac of these individuals towards the enemy, a kind of curtain.
One more feature
Giant octopuses have another distinctive feature - supraocular folds. These are 3-4 outgrowths, one of which is shaped like an ear. The octopus's mouth is located in the center of the ring formed by the upper ends of the legs; the mouth has a beak, very reminiscent of the inverted beak of a parrot, because the lower jaw extends beyond the upper. The age of an individual can be determined by its beak. In old octopuses it is dark brown in color, while in young octopuses it is transparent. With this hard tool, the cephalopod easily breaks through the shells of crabs and shells of mollusks. Octopuses have three hearts and blue blood. One heart of the underwater “aristocrat” circulates blood throughout the body, the other two push it through the gills, thanks to which the octopus breathes. But he can go without water for a decent amount of time.
"Hands"
Giant octopuses (photo attached) look like this: they have a small soft body compared to the length of the tentacles (there are only eight of them, hence the name of the mollusk), the “arms” are connected to each other by short membranes, which are very elastic and can stretch to a transparent color. This allows the “arms” to be very mobile. Each tentacle has suckers arranged in two rows, ranging from 250 to 300 pieces each. One suction cup can support a weight of 100 grams.
Other zoological details
Some species of giant octopuses are not harmless. And it’s not about the scary pictures of malacologist (a scientist who studies mollusks and soft-bodied animals) Denis de Montfort. Blue-ringed octopuses with unusually toxic venom are found on the western Pacific coast.
It can be added to the description that on the tongue of these cephalopods there is a radula, or horny grater, consisting of seven rows of transverse teeth, the largest of which are located in the central row. But this is not an exhaustive description. It should be noted the extraordinary intelligence of these animals, which is equal to the intelligence of cats and dogs. The octopus also has skin whose cells are filled with multi-colored pigments, thanks to which the animal can change its color in just one second.
Actual sizes
The smallest octopus is no more than 4 centimeters long. Officially measured and listed in the Guinness Book as the largest mollusk of this species, the octopus had a tentacle length of 3.5 meters and weighed 58 kilograms. There are legends that a specimen weighing up to 272 kilograms with tentacles whose length reached 9.5 meters was once caught. These legends of the sea are passed down from generation to generation, but there are no clearly stated scientific facts to support these stories.
Everyday life of the octopus Doflein
There really is a giant octopus, whose name in Latin looks like this - Octopus Dofleini (Doflein's octopus). This species is the most studied. It lives off the coast of Japan and Primorye, on the American side - from Bristol Bay in the north to California in the south. These octopuses are unusually homely. During the day they do not leave the den, which is usually located at shallow depths. Favorite habitat is rocky ground, located at least 300 meters, and all kinds of shelters. Old octopuses stay at home, and young ones make seasonal (spring and autumn) migrations. They either walk along the bottom with the help of tentacles, or swim, moving 4 km per day.
Family prolongation
Octopus Dofleini become sexually mature at 3-4 years of age. However, offspring can only be given at 5 years of age. At this point, the right tentacle of the third pair of the male is modified and turns into a hectocotylus. At the same time, 8-10 spermatophores appear in the male’s sac, each of which reaches a meter. During copulation, which occurs at a depth of 20 to 100 meters, the male fertilizes the female, transferring 1-2 spermatophores into her mantle cavity using a hectocotylus. And at this moment, it is better for curious scuba divers and divers to stay away.
The female hangs slimy strings containing rice-like octopus eggs from the ceiling of her lair. After 160 days or more, the larva appears. The female protects the offspring (sometimes up to 50 thousand eggs are laid) until the moment of her death, since after copulation both male and female octopuses die. First, the larvae (4 mm in size) rise to the surface and live there for 1-2 months, after which small (50 mm) octopuses sink to the bottom and, becoming benthophans (animals that feed on bottom organisms), quickly gain weight. Of course, young octopuses have many enemies - sea otters, sea lions, seals and other sea animals. But the main enemy, of course, is man. Because of it, the number of giant octopuses is sharply declining.
Krakens
The giant octopus krakens, known to everyone from the stories of Icelandic sailors, are more fictional than real creatures. The inhabitants of the “ice country”, who gave them this name, passed on the legends orally.
“Eyewitness accounts” of sea animals, which, due to their gigantic size, were mistaken for islands by sailors and fishermen, accumulated so much that Eric Ponntopidan (1698-1774), who was the Bishop of Bergen and an amateur naturalist, compiled a detailed summary of this peculiar sea folklore But the zoologist Pierre-Denis de Montfort, in love with everything fantastic, already mentioned above, described the mythical monster in a study published in 1802 and even classified it, giving it the name Kraken octopus. Scientists treated this ironically, and in the republished study the kraken was no longer mentioned.
Not cannibals at all
Giant cannibal octopuses are also rather mythical creatures. There is a video of such a cannibal attacking a scuba diver who was filming the incident. I wonder how long the operator teased the aggressor before this? And if an octopus wraps its tentacles around a camera, this does not mean at all that it is a cannibal. Most likely, in this particular case it will be eaten. And the blue-ringed mollusks mentioned above, whose poison is unusually poisonous, if they attack a person, it will only be in response, and not to eat him.
All octopuses are cautious and timid, and the sizes of the “killers” were given above. There are no cases officially confirming unmotivated aggression on the part of cephalopods. Giant octopuses remain in the legends of sailors around the world. The attack on people, if they do not poke the octopus with a stick, also comes from there. Octopuses love shelters - grottoes and caves, the holds of sunken ships. Even out of the blue, the cephalopod digs in. He can only attack by defending himself. Therefore, in those places where octopuses are found, you need to be careful when approaching any shelter.
Wonders of nature
Sometimes the ocean threw the carcasses of sea monsters from its depths onto the shore. The most famous monster is one found on the shore on November 30, 1896 in the eastern part of the Florida peninsula. It was a gigantic creature with limbs up to 11 meters. The monster was photographed and some of its parts were preserved in alcohol, which made it possible to conduct research in 1957, 1971, and 1995. It was not possible to obtain specific data. But most scientists agree that the sea demon washed ashore on the Florida peninsula is most likely a giant octopus or squid. However, the literature says a lot about “real” encounters with sea monsters. There are sites with a special focus on the Internet for lovers of cannibalistic animals.
Giant octopuses are part of the genus Enteroctopus, which in turn is part of the family Octopodidae. Included in the class of cephalopods.
Appearance of a giant octopus
Giant octopuses got their name for a reason. As you might guess, these are very large octopuses, whose weight can reach up to thirty kilograms. The range of possible size fluctuations in most cases is within one to ten kilograms. The thirty kilogram mark is reached by individuals whose size reaches one hundred and fifty centimeters.
However, this is far from the limit. Individual individuals were reliably recorded, whose length reached three meters and weight up to fifty kilograms.
According to unconfirmed reports, the giant octopus can reach a mass of 270 kilograms and a length of 960 centimeters.
One of the distinctive features of the giant octopus is that their funnel organ is W-shaped, and above the eyes there are three or four skin outgrowths, of which one is shaped like an ear. The hectocotylus in males is quite narrow, semi-closed and very similar in appearance to a tube. There is evidence indicating that the length of individual giant octopuses can reach up to nine meters.
The body of the giant octopus is soft, short and oval on the back. The mouth opening is where the giant octopus's tentacles meet, and the anus opens under the mantle. In appearance, the mantle looks like a wrinkled leather bag. The mouth of this huge cephalopod has two very powerful jaws, which bear a noticeable resemblance to the beak of a parrot. In the throat of a giant octopus there is a radula (grater), with which the octopus grinds food.
The head, like other octopuses, has eight long tentacles. The tentacles are connected to each other by a thin membrane and equipped with suction cups. The holding force of each such suction cup is approximately 100 grams, which, in light of the fact that the number of suction cups is about two thousand, provides the giant octopus with considerable strength. It is worth noting that, unlike suction cups created by humans, the giant octopus requires muscular effort to hold it with their help.
The giant octopus has three hearts, and one of them pumps blue blood throughout the body, while the other two hearts (branchial) push it through the gills. Since the giant octopus has no bones in its body, it can change its shape without much effort. This allows him to be very plastic and, among other things, to squeeze into very narrow bodies, cracks and holes compared to his size, and also to occupy a limited space, the volume of which is less than the volume of his food.
Giant octopuses, along with their other relatives, are among the most highly developed invertebrates and have a rudimentary cerebral cortex. Octopuses can even be trained, have good memory and can distinguish geometric shapes. They are able to recognize people and feel affection towards those people who feed them. If you handle an octopus for enough time, they become tame. However, despite the high learning ability of the giant octopus, there is ongoing debate among zoologists about the level of intelligence of these animals.
The main issue at the center of this debate is that octopuses are distinguished by their ability to program their brains for a particular task.
Giant octopuses have a good memory - they remember the person who cares for and feeds them. In its shape, the brain of a giant octopus is similar to a donut and is located next to the esophagus, as if wrapping around it. The eyes of this huge mollusk are large and equipped with a human-like lens. The pupil has a rectangular shape.
The giant octopus is capable of perceiving sounds, including infrasounds. Each tentacle of a giant octopus has a huge number of taste buds (up to ten thousand) that determine whether an item is edible or inedible.
Like other octopuses, the giant octopus can change the color of its body to mimic its environment. This is explained by the fact that the skin of a giant octopus contains cells with various pigments. Under the influence of impulses emanating from the central nervous system, these cells are compressed or stretched. The color of the giant octopus is common for representatives of this species and has a brownish tint. When an octopus gets scared, it becomes a lighter shade. And when angry, he becomes redder.
Giant octopus genome
In 2015, scientists made a statement that the octopus genome had been deciphered. Surprisingly, the length of the genome turned out to be about the same as that of humans (an octopus has 2.7 billion base pairs, while a human has 3 billion). If we compare the genome of octopuses, it is approximately five times larger than the genome of other invertebrates. The giant octopus has about 35% more protein-coding genes than humans. And although invertebrates have fewer chromosomes than humans, they have much more than other invertebrate animals.
There is currently no data on the time of appearance of the first giant octopuses. All that can be said is that the earliest cephalopod that has been identified as an octopus was found in the strata of the Pennsylvanian subsystem of the Carboniferous period.
Life cycle and lifestyle of the giant octopus
In summer and autumn, giant octopuses make seasonal migrations. In anticipation of spawning, in the summer, the giant octopus migrates to shallow depths, where they form aggregations. In the fall, after spawning is over, octopuses disperse throughout their entire range over a very short period of time (usually just a few days). In this case, no aggregations are formed, and the octopuses colonize the rocky soil along the isobaths. During the daytime, the giant octopus prefers to rest, being more active in the dark.
On hard surfaces, including steep ones, giant octopuses move by crawling. For this purpose, tentacles equipped with suction cups are used. Giant octopuses are capable of swimming with their tentacles backwards.
To do this, they make peculiar movements, similar to the operation of a water cannon. In this case, the giant octopus draws water into the cavity where the gills are located, and then forcefully pushes it out in the opposite direction. The giant octopus pushes water through a funnel that acts as a nozzle. We can say that giant octopuses mastered jet propulsion long before people began to think about it.
In addition, the giant octopus is able to turn the funnel and thereby change the direction of movement. True, the speed of movement of the giant octopus leaves much to be desired: it cannot compete with fish in speed. For this reason, the giant octopus prefers to hunt from an ambush, masquerading as the landscape surrounding the mollusk. If potential enemies appear nearby, he prefers to hide in a shelter. Octopuses are helped in this by their ability to squeeze through small cracks and holes.
There have been cases where giant octopuses living near the coastline settled in cans and boxes that sank to the bottom. In this case, preference is always given to “bottle” type rooms, when, if possible, a more spacious room has a narrow entrance. At the same time, giant octopuses are distinguished by cleanliness and keep the premises they occupy clean. To do this, they use their stream, which they release from a funnel, and which they use as a “broom”. At the same time, the octopus places the scraps of its food outside its home in a garbage heap.
Reproduction of giant octopuses
Small holes in the ground are used as nests, which are lined with a kind of rampart of shells and stones. The eggs are spherical in shape and are connected in groups of up to twenty pieces. After the female is fertilized, she makes a nest in a cave or hole in shallow water, where several tens of thousands of eggs will be laid. The female carefully looks after the eggs, constantly ventilating them and passing water through a siphon. With the help of tentacles, the female removes dirt and foreign objects. The female spends the entire time until the eggs develop at the nest without food and often dies after the young hatch.
Giant Octopus Habitat
If we talk about coastal areas, the most typical habitat for octopuses is rocky soil. As a rule, octopuses hide among boulders, in crevices and caves. In summer, the giant octopus can be found on all types of soil. The giant octopus can often be found on the border of sandy and rocky soils located in the vicinity of steep capes.
These octopuses are much less common on pebble and sandy soils in the center of deep bays. In cases where octopuses live at a great distance from the coast, they choose muddy, sandy, shell and gravel soils. Octopuses living in open areas, which are characterized by fine soil, are sometimes able to dig wide holes that are used by the giant octopus as a lair.
Enemies of the giant octopus
The greatest threat to the giant octopus comes from halibut catfish, sharks, seals, seals, sea lions, sea otters, sometimes sperm whales and, of course, people.
Distribution of the giant octopus
The giant octopus is widespread in sea waters from the Korean Peninsula and Japan to the southern part of Sakhalin Island and Primorye. They also live near the Aleutian and Commander Islands, Kamchatka and the Kuril Islands. Off the coast of North America, in addition to the aforementioned Aleutian Islands, they live all the way to California. Unfortunately, at present, the number of the largest females and males is increasingly declining.
Economic importance of the giant octopus
The giant octopus is a commercial animal in South Korea, North Korea, and Northern Japan, which has the most negative impact on the decline in the population of this animal. In Japanese cuisine, giant octopuses are the most common product used in dishes such as takoyaki and sushi.
In addition, they are consumed alive, for which they are cut into thin pieces and absorbed within a matter of minutes, while the tentacles continue to convulse. Recently, giant octopuses have begun to arrive in Russian restaurants, used in so-called sea cocktails, dried and salted.
Giant octopuses are sources of B vitamins, selenium, phosphorus and potassium. When cooking an animal, you need to have certain skills to get rid of residual ink, odor and mucus.
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For many centuries, the minds of sailors were excited by a possible encounter with a giant kraken - a monster the size of a small island, whose tentacles drag unwary ships into the depths of the sea. , whether there is the largest octopus in the world or the real prototypes of this monster are not impressive in size.
Top - 4 largest species of octopuses
Cephalopods are distinguished by their predatory nature, but more often they become victims of humans and larger inhabitants of the ocean, including sperm whales and killer whales. There are about 200 species of octopuses. Most of them are small benthic animals. It is worth looking for giants among the pelagic species that roam the depths of the oceans.
4. The long-tentacled octopus lives in Mediterranean waters. It was first described in 1826. The bright red body of the animal is covered with luminous white spots. It is nocturnal, hunting fish and smaller octopuses. The octopus does not refuse crustaceans and bivalves. From spring to late summer, the female long-tentacled octopus mates and then lays a single clutch. The octopus guards the future cubs until the appearance of 4 mm fully formed babies. Soon after this, the mother octopus dies from exhaustion. The mantle extends by 15 cm, but the tentacles extend the total length of the octopus’s body to 1 m. An adult cephalopod weighs 400 g.
3. The common octopus is the most common species of this order in the world. He lives in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The brain is well developed. Able to change color depending on the situation, but the usual color is brown. It feeds on plankton, fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. Females take care of the clutch and do not leave the nest for six months, which is necessary for the cubs to develop in the egg. It is of commercial interest to humans and is harvested as a food product. The length of the body usually reaches 25 cm, and the tentacles - 90 cm. However, there are specimens with limbs up to 130 cm, which gives the total length of the creature about 170 cm.
2. The Doflein's Octopus, sometimes called the Giant Octopus, is common in the northern coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean. It makes a lair on rocky ground: in underwater caves and secluded crevices. The Japanese and Koreans catch them as a game animal. The average representative grows up to 2 - 3 m with a weight of 25 - 50 kg. There is known evidence of the existence of specimens up to 9.6 m in length. It is he who holds the title of the largest cephalopod in the world, according to the 2015 Guinness Book of Records.
1. The seven-armed octopus received such a strange name not because it is disabled without one limb. The hectocotylus of this species is folded into a pouch under the right eye. This is the modified eighth tentacle, hidden from view, which the octopus uses to fertilize the female. These creatures grow up to 3.5 m in length and weigh up to 75 kg.
Largest known octopus specimens
Legends about the notorious krakens did not appear only from the impressionability of sailors. Sometimes the ocean waves washed ashore the corpses of monstrous inhabitants of the depths. How large can individual members of the octopus order be?
- In 1945, a specimen up to 8 m long and weighing 180 kg was caught off the coast of the United States.
- One day, a Doflein octopus with 9-meter tentacles and a mass of more than 270 kg was caught in a net.
- A representative of the octopus order, 3.7 m long and almost a meter across, was caught off the coast of Tasmania. In the stomach of the octopus, fishermen found a piece of the T-shirt of the previously missing crayfish fisherman Shaw Burke. It is unknown whether the clothing ended up inside the animal by accident or whether it had a tentacle attached to the person's death. This is how the legends about krakens are born.
In the last 20 years, octopuses weighing about 50 kg have been found much less frequently. Perhaps smart creatures decided that large size is not such a profitable evolutionary acquisition. Large representatives are easily noticed by sperm whales and killer whales, and are caught for human consumption. It is easier for small octopuses to hide in secluded gorges from dangerous predators. The giants of the world of eight-armed mollusks are becoming a thing of the past.
Currently the largest and heaviest octopus in the world – This is a representative of either seven-armed or doflein. However, in the future they will also be crushed, giving way to other giants of the deep sea. of this detachment served as the basis for the myths about the legendary kraken - a monster that drags entire ships into the depths of the sea. Jules Verne dedicated an entire scene to him in the immortal “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.” Even if large octopuses no longer get caught in the nets of fishermen and the lenses of divers’ cameras, the legend about them will not cease to live in the minds of dreamers.
