• Question: is the blue octopus related to any kind of land mammal?

    Asked by SNAKE7 to Lydia on 17 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Lydia Bach

      Lydia Bach answered on 17 Nov 2014:

      Hey!

      I have a cool app on my phone called TimeTree, which tells you when two animal species last had a common ancestor!
      – Because all animals are related to one another, just became different species at different times.

      So I looked when the octopus and a giraffe last had a common ancestor, which was 780 Million year ago! My TimeTree app tells me that we shared an ancestor with the blue octopus last 782 Million Years ago! – So the octopus is closer related to the giraffe because its common ancestor is ‘only’ 780 Million years old, not 782!

      Do you want me to check for any other land animals?

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