Octopuses are all soft tissue (except for their "beak"), so it would be very hard to determine from the fossil record how much change has occurred. Perhaps as a

Octopuses are all soft tissue (except for their "beak"), so it would be very hard to determine from the fossil record how much change has occurred. Perhaps as a result, they are not mentioned in the "living fossil" article above. An additional complication is that some cephalopods have a relatively unique ability to change gene expression in response to environmental factors [0]. As a result, even if one were to see physiological change or change in ecological niche, it might not be as a result of speciation. Hopefuly soon techniques of analyzing ancient DNA [1] will be more broadly used to understand the stories of long surviving species. 0. https://www.nsf.gov/news/masters-acclimation-octopuses-adjust-cold-editing https://www.nsf.gov/news/masters-acclimation-octopuses-adjus... 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_DNA