Dumbo Octopus
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40 free Dumbo Octopus trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The dumbo octopus looks like a cartoon and lives like an astronaut. It flaps a pair of ear-shaped fins through cold, lightless water far below the reach of divers, and most of what we know comes from a handful of specimens and a few minutes of robot-submarine video. This quiz turns the best dumbo octopus fun facts into questions: how it swims, feeds and breeds, what it lacks that other octopuses have, where it has been found, who its relatives are, and how scientists study an animal they almost never meet. A few questions cover its namesake and its appearances on screen. It suits curious kids, ocean lovers and anyone building a sea-life trivia round. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you learn something even when you guess.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The dumbo octopus is named after Disney's big-eared film star Dumbo, who is which kind of animal?
An elephant
An elephant mocked for his oversized ears, Dumbo starred in a 1941 Disney film. The octopus's two big flapping fins reminded people of him.
Q 02Dumbo octopuses, rarely seen alive by humans, hold which record among all known octopus species?
Deepest-living
Deepest-living of all known octopuses, they are usually found 3,000 to 4,000 metres down. A few have been recorded close to 7,000 metres.
Q 03Living in permanent darkness, dumbo octopuses have lost which organ found in most shallow-water octopuses?
An ink sac
An ink sac is no use where there is no light to block, so dumbo octopuses have none. The same is true of every finned deep-sea octopus.
Q 04Rather than tearing food apart like most octopuses, how does a dumbo octopus typically eat its prey?
Swallows it whole
Swallows it whole is the dumbo octopus's way: small seafloor animals go down in one piece. Its simplified mouth has no need to tear or grind first.
Q 05A dumbo octopus, like its shallow-water cousins, has three of which organ?
Hearts
Hearts come in threes for every octopus: two pump blood through the gills. The third sends it around the rest of the body.
Q 06What colour is a dumbo octopus's oxygen-rich blood, thanks to a copper-based protein instead of iron?
Blue
Blue blood runs through every octopus, coloured by the copper-rich protein haemocyanin. It carries oxygen better than iron-based haemoglobin in chilly, low-oxygen water.
Q 07Pearl, a young classmate in Pixar's Finding Nemo, is which kind of octopus, a finned cousin of the dumbo?
Flapjack
Flapjack octopus is Pearl's species, a flattened pinkish relative from shallower water. Resting flat on the seabed, it looks rather like a pancake.
Q 08Female dumbo octopuses carry eggs at many stages of development, suggesting that their breeding happens when?
All year round
All year round, it seems, because dumbo octopuses have no breeding season at all. A female can lay whenever conditions on the deep seafloor suit her.
Q 09Dumbo octopuses flap their fins to swim, whereas most other octopuses rely mainly on which method?
Jet propulsion
Jet propulsion, squirting water through a funnel, is the standard octopus way to swim. Flapping fins costs a dumbo octopus less energy in the food-poor deep.
Q 10The ear-like fins that give a dumbo octopus its cartoon-inspired name sit where on its body?
Just above the eyes
Just above the eyes is where each fin sprouts, one on either side of the body. Flapping them is the animal's main way of swimming.
Q 11Dumbo octopuses belong to which class of molluscs, alongside cuttlefish and nautiluses?
Cephalopods
Cephalopods means head-feet in Greek, a nod to limbs that sprout straight from the head. About 800 living kinds are known.
Q 12Dumbo octopus eggs have been found attached to which animals growing on the deep seabed?
Corals
Corals, specifically deep-water octocorals, give each egg a firm anchor on the seabed. Every egg sits alone in its own tough capsule.
Q 13Unlike most octopus mothers, what does a female dumbo octopus do with her eggs once they are laid?
Leaves them unguarded
Leaves them unguarded: the mother neither watches nor incubates her eggs. A typical shallow-water octopus stays with hers until they hatch, then dies.
Q 21Oceana warns that which emerging seabed industry could wreck the fragile habitat of the dumbo octopus?
Deep-sea mining
Deep-sea mining would stir up clouds of sediment and add noise, vibration and chemicals to a barely explored habitat. Scientists and several countries want it paused.
Q 22Dissections of dumbo octopuses show that they feed mainly on which small seafloor prey?
Worms and crustaceans
Worms and crustaceans such as copepods, isopods and amphipods turn up in dissected stomachs. Scientists rely on such finds because the animals are almost never seen feeding.
Q 23The emperor dumbo octopus was described in 2021 without dissecting its only specimen, thanks to which technology?
Q 14The first dumbo octopus hatchling ever filmed, reported in 2018, emerged from its egg resembling what?
A miniature adult
A miniature adult, fins and all: the newborn could already swim, sense its surroundings and catch prey. Most octopuses start life as tiny planktonic larvae instead.
Q 15Dumbo octopus arms carry a pair of small strands beside each sucker, known by which name?
Cirri
Cirri are thought to help with feeding, perhaps by wafting food towards the mouth. They give the entire finned suborder its scientific name, Cirrina.
Q 16Dumbo octopuses seen below 6,000 metres live in which ocean zone, named after the Greek god of the underworld?
Hadal
Hadal zone, after Hades, is the name for the ocean's trenches below about 6,000 metres. The term was only proposed in 1956.
Q 17Two dumbo octopus species were first collected in the 1870s by which British ocean research voyage?
The Challenger expedition
The Challenger expedition dredged animals from the deep seabed while circling the globe. Its finned octopuses were at first filed under other scientific names.
Q 18Scientific names of dumbo octopuses end in -teuthis, which comes from the Greek word for which animal?
Squid
Squid is the meaning of the Greek teuthis, so these octopuses carry another animal's name. The study of octopuses and their kin is called teuthology for the same reason.
Q 19Unlike most octopuses, a dumbo octopus keeps which U-shaped support inside its body to anchor its fin muscles?
An inner shell
An inner shell, a leftover from the armour of its mollusc ancestors, braces the muscles that work the fins. Common shallow-water octopuses have no such support.
Q 20Finned octopuses such as the dumbo octopus have a reduced or missing version of which toothed feeding ribbon?
The radula
The radula, a ribbon of tiny teeth, lets most molluscs rasp their food into shreds. A few dumbo octopuses, including the emperor dumbo, still have one.
MRI and CT scans
MRI and CT scans built a 3D picture of the animal inside and out, so the single known specimen never had to be cut open. A small tissue sample supplied its DNA.
Q 24The emperor dumbo octopus takes its regal name from which feature of the North Pacific seabed?
A chain of seamounts
A chain of seamounts, the Emperor Seamounts, is where the only known specimen was found. The underwater mountains stretch across the northwestern Pacific.
Q 25A 2020 study reported a dumbo octopus filmed almost seven kilometres down in which deep ocean trench?
Java
Java Trench footage showed the animal 6,957 metres down in the Indian Ocean. It proved that octopuses live even in the ocean's very lowest layer.
Q 26The tough outer casing of a dumbo octopus egg, absent in other octopuses, hardens on contact with what?
Cold seawater
Cold seawater sets the casing hard soon after the egg is laid. Dumbo octopus eggs are also unusually large for an octopus.
Q 27Most dumbo octopus species are small and bell-shaped with short arms, growing to roughly what length?
About 25 cm
About 25 cm is typical: most kinds measure 20 to 30 cm, roughly the length of a school ruler.
Q 28The common name dumbo octopus, often taken to mean a single animal, actually covers what?
More than a dozen species
More than a dozen species share the name, all in one genus of finned deep-sea octopuses. Several are known from only a handful of specimens.
Q 29Each fin of a dumbo octopus is stiffened at its base by a core of which flexible tissue?
Cartilage
Cartilage at the base of each fin gives the thick swimming muscles something firm to pull against, allowing quick bursts of speed.
Q 30Which scientific genus name, coined by zoologist Guy Robson in 1932, belongs to the dumbo octopuses?
Grimpoteuthis
Grimpoteuthis was Robson's new home for finned octopuses that had been filed under other names. Some classifications give the genus its own family, Grimpoteuthidae.