Animals
Algae octopus
The ranked speed is Huffard's calculated jetting maximum of 70.1 cm/s for Abdopus aculeatus, stored as 0.701 m/s. Walking from the same study is a separate measurement.
Top speed
Published as 0.701 m/sPublished as 0.701 m/sPublished as 0.701 m/s
Calculated jetting maximum, 70.1 cm/s, from 62 bouts and ten Abdopus aculeatus. Method code VK: video kinematics. Sony DCR-VX2000, 30 frames/s, digitized in ScionImage. Lizard Island, August 2005, 2.5 m tank, water depth about 0.3 m. Huffard 2006 says the trials were not aimed at an absolute maximum.
In context
- 50% of walking paceConstant · A typical walking pace, 5 km/h
- 6.7% of Usain Bolt's 100 m world-record paceSourced · Usain Bolt, 100 m in 9.58 s. World Athletics, Berlin 2009. Averaged over the race
- A football field in 2 minConstant · American football field, 100 yd (91.44 m)
Worked out from the sourced figure above, which stays the ranked number.
Mechanism
Why it's so fast
An algae octopus does not run. It jets: water enters the mantle and leaves through the funnel, and the animal goes the other way. The ranked figure is a filmed laboratory maximum, and the paper says the trials were not aimed at an absolute record.
Jet propulsion
A squeeze of the mantle throws a pulse of water. That is the fast gait. Walking on the arms, including the bipedal walk from the same study, is a separate and slower measurement.
A film, frame by frame
Huffard digitized video of animals at Lizard Island. The method is on the entry. A viral miles-per-hour claim that those papers do not print is not used.
One species
This is Abdopus aculeatus in a tank, not every octopus. A sentence about a different species was left off the rank, which the entry explains.
A land sprint, for scale, is the cheetah. Nothing else on the mollusc list is published yet.
Provenance
Every measurement
Claimed, measured and official figures side by side, each with its source. The ranked figure is marked.
- 2.5km/h1.6mph0.701m/s1.4knRanked figure
Calculated jetting maximum, 70.1 cm/s, from 62 bouts and ten Abdopus aculeatus. Method code VK: video kinematics. Sony DCR-VX2000, 30 frames/s, digitized in ScionImage. Lizard Island, August 2005, 2.5 m tank, water depth about 0.3 m. Huffard 2006 says the trials were not aimed at an absolute maximum. · Jetting
Method code VK. Primary ranked speed. Paper unit cm/s, stored as m/s.
Verified - 1.6km/h1.0mph0.453m/s0.881kn
Mean jetting speed, 45.3±19.4 cm/s, same video bouts as the ranked maximum. Method code VK: video kinematics. Sony DCR-VX2000, 30 frames/s, digitized in ScionImage. Lizard Island, August 2005, 2.5 m tank, water depth about 0.3 m. Huffard 2006 says the trials were not aimed at an absolute maximum. · Jetting average
Method code VK. Group mean, not the rank.
Verified - 0.684km/h0.425mph0.19m/s0.369kn
Bipedal walking maximum, 19.0 cm/s, five animals, 23 bouts, rolling on arm pair IV. This is walking, not jetting. Method code VK: video kinematics. Sony DCR-VX2000, 30 frames/s, digitized in ScionImage. Lizard Island, August 2005, 2.5 m tank, water depth about 0.3 m. Huffard 2006 says the trials were not aimed at an absolute maximum. · Bipedal walking
Method code VK. Walking only. Huffard 2005 describes the gait and does not give this absolute speed.
Verified
Reference
Specs
- Species
- Abdopus aculeatus
- Ranked trial
- 70.1 cm/s jetting maximum, Huffard 2006
- Stored as
- 0.701 m/s
- Method code
- VK (video kinematics, 30 frames/s)
- Place
- Lizard Island Research Station, 2.5 m tank
Context
Background
The ranked figure is a laboratory jet, not a field record and not a speed for every octopus. Christine L. Huffard filmed Abdopus aculeatus at the Lizard Island Research Station in August 2005 and published the speeds in the Journal of Experimental Biology in 2006 (doi:10.1242/jeb.02435). Sixty-two jetting bouts from ten animals were digitized at 30 frames per second. The paper states that maximum jetting speeds calculated were 70.1 cm/s, and that jetting speeds averaged 45.3 cm/s. The methods say the study did not aim to show absolute maxima. This page stores 70.1 cm/s as 0.701 m/s and 45.3 cm/s as 0.453 m/s. The page converts those metres per second for display.
Bipedal walking is a different behavior and is labeled as walking. The same 2006 paper says five animals walked bipedally 23 times and reached a maximum of 19.0 cm/s, stored here as 0.19 m/s. Huffard, Boneka and Full described that gait in Science in 2005 (doi:10.1126/science.1109616). That note gives absolute walking speeds for Octopus marginatus, about 0.06 and 0.14 m/s, and does not print an absolute speed for Abdopus aculeatus. The marginatus speeds stay off this entry.
Wells, Duthie, Houlihan, Smith and Wells 1987 (doi:10.1242/jeb.131.1.175) discuss Octopus vulgaris, a different species. The paper says speed can run from a slow walk around 5 cm/s to a jet-propelled escape backwards at 1 m/s or more, and then says the report covers the slow end of that range. A 100 cm/s timed maximum is not entered from that sentence. Viral claims near 25 mph are not in these papers and are not published here. The list is this one species, under an exception that allows the best published laboratory measurement when a second and third independent timing do not exist. It is not a comprehensive ranking of octopuses.
Spot a wrong number?
Every report is read by a person, and corrections are dated on the page.