In a short clip captured during a blackwater night dive in the Lembeh Strait, a blanket octopus unfolds and displays a colorful web multiple times her original size. The aquatic animal’s iridescent body and tentacles glow against the nighttime water before she releases her translucent blanket that connects her dorsal and dorsolateral arms. Only adult females are equipped with the lengthy membrane that reaches as long as six feet and dwarfs male octopi, which are less than an inch in size and most often die immediately after mating. Generally, the females only unfurl their color-changing blankets to appear larger and more intimidating to potential predators. Shared by NAD Lembeh Resort, the underwater video was taken on a RED Gemini with a 50 millimeter Zeiss Macro lens. You might also want to check out this footage of a blanket octopus in waters near the Philippines.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
