Unlike most species of animals, the females are much larger than the males. They can reach 2 meters in length while the males are only a few centimeters long. The male dies shortly after mating and the female carries nearly 100,000 eggs at the base of her dorsal arm.
The blanket octopus is immune to the poison of the Portuguese Man O’War. This allows the males and immature females to rip off the man o’war’s tentacles and use them for defensive purposes. The females also unfurl their net-like membranes to increase their apparent size.
