Gentleman’ octopus taps prey on shoulder before attacking

When it comes to good manners the Pacific striped octopus may be the king of the ocean. Unlike other cephalopods which grab their prey and tackle it to the sea bed in a flurry of aggression, the creature gently taps its prey on the shoulder and startles it into is arms. "I've never seen anything like it," said marine biologist Roy Caldwell, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of integrative biology. "Octopuses typically pounce on their prey or poke around in holes until they find something. When this octopus sees a shrimp at a distance, it compresses itself and creeps up, extends an arm up and over the shrimp, touches it on the far side and either catches it or scares it into its other arms." The species, which lives in the eastern Pacific, is also the only octopus to ‘kiss’ and hold tentacles while mating, coming together with its intended in a unique beak-to-beak embrace. Typically male octopuses share sperm with females at arm’s length, primed to flee should their mate get aggressive or hungry. READ MORE -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/11798367/Gentleman-octopus-taps-prey-on-shoulder-before-attacking.html