Blue ringed octopus can be found all over south-east Australia, near Sydney and especially Melbourne as well as around the Pacific Islands.
An animal the size of the Blue Ring Octopus, no matter how deadly, does not reach meals much bigger than it’s self. (unless it’s a snake link to a snake eating something much bigger than it) The Blue Ring Octopus eats shrimp, crabs, and small injured fish.
It’s a tough life for the Blue Ring Octopi. After impregnating a female the males die, but the females do not fare much better. They will only live long enough to lay 50-100 pea sized eggs before dying. The babies quickly out grow their awkward teen years, maturing to around the size of a golf ball within an year. From there the octopus is free to find themselves, eat good shrimp, fall in love and die to make way for their kids who will continue this cycle.
Blue Ring Octopi only live for around 2 year.
Blue ringed octopuses are a deep brown to gold until antagonized then flashing the trademark of the bright iridescent blue rings as a warning or aposematic response to perceived danger. The Motote Blue Ring will flash its colors as a pale white and brown striped warning sign with only two visible blue spots on either side of the head.
Now the most important question. How can this tiny little animal really be dangerous to people? Oh boy can it.
The Blue Ring Octopus has two venoms in which it can kill prey, one for it’s prey and one for self defense.
The first one is not poisonous to humans and is used to paralyze their prey for the octopus to eat it.
Tetrodotoxin is the second one and the one we need to worry about. This venom is the one the octopus uses in self defense, because really, this tiny octopus is not looking to go anywhere near us let alone want to eat us. It is transferred through the bit and it only takes 1 milligram of it’s purified form to kill a person.
What Tetrodotoxin does is causes paralysis by blocking the sodium channel, which in turn prevents nerve cells from firing off to the brain. At the same time this prevents the brain telling any muscles to move, it also causes the respiratory to slow down. Tetrodotoxin is also found in pufferfish and cone snails.
While there are ways to tetrodotoxin poisoning, there is no antidote. CPR to someone who has just been poisoned will allow the air too keep flowing. Don’t worry about the poison getting on the one administrating the CPR. The poison is injected into the victim via the bite. While the venom can be felt from the saliva left behind, that does not cause tetrodotoxin poisoning.