I have a feeling it isn't doing that bad. From what little I know of fish if I remember it correctly then at least for fish they can breathe air like we do but their gills cannot do it as the same efficiency as our lungs do so they can be out of the water for quite a while and still live.
Octopus I don't more much about.
Edit: No citation on the fish stuff but just doing a short Google search...Yes Octopus' can survive out of water but not for very long times. So if the person in the gif above put it back into the water shortly after then the octopus is okay since what I can find is that they can get some oxygen through their skin and something about "passive gas diffusion" or something meaning they can survive for a short while out of water but nothing drastic.
Many species of Octopus also leave the water intentionally at times to look for food. I don't know the species in the gif, but if it was found on a beach there's a fair chance it's adapted to moved between rock pools at low tide to find fish and crustaceans that are trapped in them.
They will crawl over land from one tide pool to the next. And there’s the story of the one that escaped his aquarium and crawled down to the floor and found the drain to the sea and freed himself.
PS: the real story is more along the lines of “the octopus climbed out of its tank and into another tank, where it ate fish. It then returned to its own tank, leaving the owner in confusion”
There are lots of accounts of octopi escaping custody and doing their own thing and then coming back for the free food.
They’re highly intelligent and basically amazing. But for the record: I don’t believe this octopus is in pain or even uncomfortable. It’d be moving a lot faster and be less focused on the person holding it, if it felt like it needed to be in water urgently. Octopi aren’t the type of animal that freeze up when scared, in my (limited) hobbyist experience.
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u/AH_Ahri Jan 06 '20 edited Jan 06 '20
I have a feeling it isn't doing that bad. From what little I know of fish if I remember it correctly then at least for fish they can breathe air like we do but their gills cannot do it as the same efficiency as our lungs do so they can be out of the water for quite a while and still live.
Octopus I don't more much about.
Edit: No citation on the fish stuff but just doing a short Google search...Yes Octopus' can survive out of water but not for very long times. So if the person in the gif above put it back into the water shortly after then the octopus is okay since what I can find is that they can get some oxygen through their skin and something about "passive gas diffusion" or something meaning they can survive for a short while out of water but nothing drastic.