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Asked by George to Carrie, Cedric, Ellen, Ines, Rupert on 10 Mar 2017. This question was also asked by kkcrispy.
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Carrie Ijichi answered on 10 Mar 2017:
Animals only have things because they need them. Evolution is pretty efficient and it doesn’t tend to create things just for the sake of it. Two of its hearts pump blood through its breathing apparatus and the other pumps around it’s body – complicated!
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Ellen Williams answered on 10 Mar 2017:
Ooo really good question, I didn’t actually know, but I see Carrie has given you a great answer already 🙂
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Rupert Marshall answered on 11 Mar 2017:
Octopi have one heart to pump blood round the body, like us, then they have two more which pumps blood round their gills to collect oxygen from the water. It’s a bit like if we had 2 extra hearts, one for each of our lungs. There’s a short cartoon explaining this here:
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Ines Goncalves answered on 11 Mar 2017:
I have a confession: what I’m about to write is plagiarism, I’m just about to copy paste what I found on the website. But I didn’t know the answer to your question, and you made me look of it and learn something new today! So here it goes: “Two of the hearts work exclusively to move blood beyond the animal’s gills, while the third keeps circulation flowing for the organs. The organ heart actually stops beating when the octopus swims, explaining the species’ penchant for crawling rather than swimming, which exhausts them.”
Here’s the website, which has 9 other very cool facts about octopuses:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ten-curious-facts-about-octopuses-7625828/Enjoy!
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Cedric Tan answered on 14 Mar 2017:
Carrie has given a great answer. I wish to add that octopus also has lots of love to give and therefore has 3 hearts. Just kidding!
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