An octopus can change the color of its skin to blend in with its surroundings. How does it do that? The answer is in the skin, as the next pages show. An octopus's skin has special pigment cells called chromatophores, and these cells let it change color. Let's look at how the chromatophores work.

Look closer at the skin. Tiny muscles around each color sac squeeze it open or let it close. When the sac opens, the color shows more. When it closes, the color shows less. This is how an octopus can change color. It can do so faster than almost any other animal.

The skin can change in more than color. An octopus can also change the texture of its skin. It can raise bumps called papillae. So the skin can change how it looks, and it can change how it feels. The mimic octopus can copy the look and moves of several different animals.

An octopus uses color in two ways. It can change color to blend in with its surroundings. A blue-ringed octopus is a small octopus with bright blue rings. It flashes the rings as a warning. People should never touch one.

Octopuses live in the sea, in oceans all around the world. They hide in homes called dens. A den can be a crevice. It can even be a shell or a bottle. An octopus has a soft body with no bones. It can squeeze its soft body into tiny cracks and small spaces.

Sometimes hiding is not enough. An octopus can squirt out a cloud of dark ink to help it escape. It can also zoom away by squirting water out of its body, like a jet. Most of the time, an octopus crawls along the sea floor. To go fast, it jets through the water. So an octopus has one more trick for when its colors are not enough.

Words to know

• chromatophores: color cells
• texture: how skin feels
• papillae: skin bumps
• dens: hiding homes

The short version

An octopus can change the color of its skin to blend in with its surroundings. Its skin has special pigment cells called chromatophores. Tiny muscles around each color sac squeeze it open or let it close, so the color shows more or less. An octopus can change color faster than almost any other animal.

Quick facts

• An octopus's skin has special pigment cells called chromatophores that let it change color.
• Tiny muscles around each color sac squeeze it open or let it close, so the color shows more or less.
• An octopus can also change the texture of its skin, raising bumps called papillae.
• A blue-ringed octopus flashes bright blue rings as a warning, and people should never touch one.
• An octopus can squirt out a cloud of dark ink to help it escape.