An Answer for Phenix.

Dear Phenix:

Hey, hey! So nice to hear from you and I really appreciate your time reading my blog. The main goal for this blog is to remind people how important each and every one of those animals around us can be, and, of course, by writing this blog, I hope people can at least learn not to over kill or torture them.

Anyway, to answer your question and sorry it took so long for me to reply, I needed to ask the expert in the aquarium about this.

They said they don't think the octopus can survive just only one, or two, of their hearts, since, as you already know, octopus have three hearts, each one crucial to maintaining the robust blood pressure that allows octopuses to be active hunters and powerful swimmers.

Human hearts have two main jobs. One is to pump blood to the lungs, where it dumps carbon dioxide and picks up oxygen. The second is to distribute freshly oxygenated blood to the rest of the body.

Making sure enough blood gets to the lungs is so important, in fact, that two of the human heart’s four chambers are reserved solely for that task.

Octopus hearts solve the circulation problem a bit differently. They have one main heart, called the systemic heart, and two smaller hearts located near their gills. The two smaller hearts perform the same task as the right side of the human heart.

They pump blood to the gills where it dumps waste and loads up on oxygen, then pump the oxygen-rich blood back to the main heart. The main heart then pumps the refreshed blood through the octopus’s body.

Besides having three hearts, the octopus circulatory system differs from the human system in one other way. Human blood contains the protein hemoglobin, which helps it absorb oxygen and causes its red color. The blood coursing through the three hearts of the octopus is blue, thanks to a different protein called hemocyanin.

Octopuses are rather shy, so despite their blue blood they are not exactly kings of the sea. But there’s no denying that they’ve got a lot of heart.

I hope it answered your question and once again, thank you so much for coming to my animal blog, I hope I can see you posting comments or questions again soon.

Tammy