Lil’ guy is basically Where’s Waldo without the menacingly prison-like red striped turtleneck. Except when you do see this underwater critter, it balloons into an electric blue ball that is more Megamind than the shy and (annoyingly) aloof bespectacled brunette. Why does it do that? Mental Floss has the rundown there — of which we have to admit the most interesting thing to learn was that multiple octopuses are just that: octopuses, not octopi. Ernie Sawyer, a senior aquarist at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, explained. Basically, they are originally trying to blend in to their surroundings, but when an unwanted visitor swims too near, it blows up to give off a more intimidating presence. How does it do it? “The act of changing color is the work of cells called chromatophores that contain colorful pigments (black, brown, orange, red, or yellow) and can be squeezed like a balloon to make the pigments more prominent on the skin.”
But back to Waldo, what was up with that anyway? Was Waldo on the run? And if so, what was he running from? Childhood leaves us with so many of those unanswered questions…
