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Ocean animals

Starry night octopus

Amazing fact

The starry night octopus turns darker when stressed by something outside its body.

국립해양생물자원관
Starry night octopus in its habitat (illustration)

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An illustration based on the real animal.

A little discovery to share.

The starry night octopus turns darker when stressed by something outside its body.

Source국립해양생물자원관 — 흰반점문어 Callistoctopus luteus

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THE REAL WORLD

The real Starry night octopus

Scientific name
Callistoctopus luteus
Japanese name
サメハダテナガダコ
Group
Ocean animals
Class
Cephalopoda
Order
Octopoda
Family
Octopodidae
Genus
Callistoctopus
Facts about the real animal.

Where the name “Starry night octopus” comes from

The starry night octopus gets its Japanese name partly from its sharkskin-like surface.

とっとり賀露かにっこ館
01

It lives from the Pacific coast of Honshu to the Philippines.

鳥羽水族館 — サメハダテナガダコ
02

The upper side of its body is covered with white bumps of uneven sizes.

鳥羽水族館 — サメハダテナガダコ
03

Some of its arms are much longer than the others.

鳥羽水族館 — サメハダテナガダコ

How the Starry night octopus lives

It lives on sandy or seagrass-covered seabeds near the shore.

국립해양생물자원관

Basic data

Range
From the Pacific coast of Honshu to the Philippines
鳥羽水族館

Where the Starry night octopus has been recorded

World map with dots where the Starry night octopus has been recorded
Each dot marks a place with observations or specimens shared on GBIF. Some records are of animals that strayed or were brought by people, so the dots are not always where the animal lives.

Records: GBIF.org (CC0 and CC BY 4.0 records, retrieved 2026-11-07). Map: Natural EarthSee the records on GBIF

Where it livesJapanAsiaCoasts

Watch wild animals from a distance. Do not touch or feed them, and take care of the places where they live.

Names around the world

简体中文
星空柔蛸
繁體中文
紅章
Português (Brasil)
Polvo-de-recife-pintado

Names come from Wikidata and iNaturalist records. Where a language has no recorded name, we use the scientific name.

Sources and how we check

We check each fact against its source. The illustrations simplify how the real animal looks.

The classification (class, order, family, genus) follows Wikidata records, checked against GBIF. Classifications can change as research goes on.

The basic data are the values given in each source. They vary with how the animal is measured, whether it is male or female, and whether it lives in the wild or in captivity.

This page was translated from the original Japanese with the help of AI.

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