"Most octopuses will let you get close, maybe even touch them, but normally they'll try to run once the manipulator arm gets close," said Alvin pilot Bruce Strickrott. Instead of swimming away, this female octopus grabbed the submersible's robotic manipulator arm, used for picking up samples of seafloor rocks and organisms and conducting deep-sea epxeriments. Strickrott and Penn State biologist Chuck Fisher encountered the octopus 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) down in the Gulf of Mexico in May 2006. The octopus's bright orange color is unusual among octopuses living at depths below a half-mile (800 meters). Normally, they are purply. (Photo by Bruce Strickrott, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
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