How long can octopus stay out of water

Q: Does octopus live on land?

aculeatus has been described as the only land octopus, because it lives on beaches, walking from one tidal pool to the next as it hunts for crab. Many octopuses can crawl short distances on land when necessary, but no others do so routinely.

First, it is important to state that octopuses are marine creatures. Their entire life cycle takes place in the water. At no time should you ever take an octopus out of the water on purpose.

Índice Show

Gills and Skin
Water is Key
Tidal Pool Octopuses
How long can an octopus stay on land?
Can octopus breathe air out of water?
Does octopus live on land?
Can octopus walk on dry land?

With that said, octopuses can survive outside of water for a few minutes. In order to understand how this is so, it is important to understand how octopuses get their oxygen.

Gills and Skin

Being aquatic, octopuses rely on gills to extract oxygen from the water. Octopuses have three hearts. Two of these organs are used to pump blood specifically to the gills in order to remain oxygenated. In case you were curious, the other heart circulates the blood to the rest of the octopus’ body.

Unlike other marine creatures, such as fish, which rely entirely on gills for oxygen transfer, an octopus has an advantage. They can also absorb oxygen from the water through their skin. This is accomplished through a process known as passive diffusion.

When an octopus is at rest, over 40 percent of its oxygen requirements can be met by this form of gas exchange between its skin and the surrounding water. When it is swimming or engaged in other activity, the oxygen absorbed through the skin drops to less than 30 percent.

The lowest that oxygen absorption through the skin gets is immediately after an octopus eats. Even if motionless, during digestion, the oxygen absorption drops to the single digits. Sometimes as low as 3 percent.

Water is Key

As you can see, the main ingredient required by an octopus to get oxygen is water.

So, what happens if an octopus is out of the water? Well, first the gills become ineffective. This because they cannot draw oxygen from the air and also because without water the lack of buoyancy causes them to collapse. If the lack of water is for a brief period, the gills normally regain their buoyancy and oxygen absorption ability once the octopus is back in the water.

The only source of oxygen for an octopus on land would be the residual moisture from the water on its skin. This would not last for too long. Besides, even at peak efficiency, less than half of its oxygen requirements can ever be met through passive diffusion.

Tidal Pool Octopuses

There are some species of octopus which live near areas of coastline which have tidal pools during low tide. These octopuses purposefully come onto the areas of receded water in order to crawl from tidal pool to tidal pool to catch crabs and other creatures waiting for high tide to return in those tidal pools. These octopuses use the passive diffusion of oxygen through their skin to survive these short jaunts on land.

Even these tidal pool octopuses keep their “land time” to a minimum. It only requires them to spend less than a minute on land to get from tidal pool to tidal pool.

In short, an octopus could survive out of the water for several minutes. The longer it is out of the water, the greater the risk of it suffering damage to its gills. If outside for too long, an octopus will die.

How long can an octopus stay on land?

Under ideal conditions, an octopus may survive several minutes on land. Octopuses have gills and hence are dependent on water for the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Gills collapse on land because of the lack of buoyancy (source: UC Santa Barbara). Octopuses have three hearts.

Can octopus breathe air out of water?

Octopuses breathe underwater through a set of internal gills which extract oxygen from the water as they do not have lungs to breathe air. An octopus uses its gills to breathe like other sea creatures, it cannot breathe air.

Does octopus live on land?

aculeatus has been described as "the only land octopus", because it lives on beaches, walking from one tidal pool to the next as it hunts for crab. Many octopuses can crawl short distances on land when necessary, but no others do so routinely.

Can octopus walk on dry land?

This amazing video of an octopus literally crawling out of the water and walking across dry land was captured at the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve in California. But it turns out that this behavior is not as uncommon as you might expect.