blanket octopus

plural blanket octopuses · nonstandard plural blanket octopusses · nonstandard plural blanket octopi · nonstandard plural blanket octopii · plural rare blanket octopodes

1. Any of four species of pelagic octopus of the genus Tremoctopus, found in tropical and subtropical oceans.

   One species, the Blanket octopus, has the most extreme divergence in size between the two sexes in a single species of any animal: females weigh 10,000 times as much as males.

   2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, Granta Books, published 2013, page 229

   1 more example

   Blanket octopuses appear to be immune or resistant to Portugese^([sic]) man 'o' war stings and have even been observed wielding the stinging tentacles they’ve detached as a weapon.

   2018 March 27, Mark Carnall, The Guardian