Coleção Biológica de Apoio à Investigação- COBI

Beneath the surface of our oceans…
lives a group of creatures so strange, so impossibly intelligent —
scientists still can't fully explain them.
The Giant Pacific Octopus — the largest of its kind.
Eight arms. Three hearts. Blue blood.
And a brain that rewires itself every single day.
The Blue-Ringed Octopus — smaller than your palm.
But carrying enough venom to kill twenty-six humans.
Those glowing rings? That's not beauty.
That's a warning.
The Mimic Octopus — it doesn't just hide.
It becomes something else entirely.
A lionfish. A flatfish. A sea snake.
One animal. Infinite disguises.
The Dumbo Octopus drifts through crushing darkness,
three miles below the surface —
where no light has ever touched.
The Vampire Squid wraps itself in its own cloak,
vanishing into the abyss like a ghost with wings.
And then… the Glass Octopus.
Completely transparent.
You can see its organs. Its eyes. Its soul.
Six species.
Six impossible creatures.
One ocean.
How much of it… do we really know?
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In 2015, a robotic camera slipped beneath the waters of the Galápagos Islands.
Nearly six thousand feet below the surface — beyond sunlight, beyond warmth, in a silence heavy enough to crush steel — its lights found something no human being had ever seen.
A creature no larger than your hand.
Blue skin. Gigantic eyes. Eight delicate arms unfolding like silk in slow motion.
For a moment, the room aboard the research vessel went quiet.
Then someone whispered…
“It looks like a stuffed toy.”
And somehow, it did.
But this was not a toy. Not a myth. Not a creature from a film.
It was an undiscovered species — alive all this time in the darkness, moving through a world untouched by human eyes, waiting in silence beneath an ocean that still hides more than it reveals.
The Galápagos Islands have always reminded us of a terrifyingly beautiful truth:
Earth is not fully known.
Even now, in the deepest water below us, entire worlds remain unseen — not because they are impossible to find…
but because we still don’t know the right questions to ask.
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Meet the Red King Crab — one of the ocean's most ancient and formidable creatures. This giant can span over five feet from claw to claw and weigh up to 28 pounds. Unlike true crabs, it actually has ten limbs — but only six are visible, because two are tucked beneath its shell. It walks forward, not sideways, setting it apart from most crustaceans. King crabs can live up to 30 years in the wild, surviving in freezing Arctic and sub-Arctic waters as cold as 35°F. They shed their entire shell — a process called molting — and are completely vulnerable until the new one hardens. Their blue blood contains copper-based hemocyanin, which turns blue when exposed to oxygen. They're born as free-floating larvae, drifting with ocean currents for months before settling on the seafloor. And despite their intimidating appearance, they're meticulous cleaners of the ocean floor — feeding on algae, worms, clams, and even sea urchins. This is not just a seafood delicacy. This is a living fossil of the deep.
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Recentemente, no Agrupamento de Escolas de Ílhavo e no Colégio de Albergaria

Departamento de Biologia - Universidade de Aveiro