Creature Features


	Giant Pacific octopus Enteroctopus dofleini The North Pacific Giant Octopus can be found on the continental shelf of the North Pacific Ocean from the low-tide line to depths of 500 meters. The Giant Pacific Octopus is shy and intelligent and eat sharks (in captivity, anyway, they’ve preyed on spiny dogfish 3-4 feet long). In spite of that, they live about four years, longer than most octopus species. As its name suggests, the Giant Octopus is the biggest species of octopus. One captured near Victoria, B.C. in 1967 tipped the scales at 70kg (156 pounds) and was almost 7.5 meters (23 feet) from arm tip to arm tip. The record weight is 600 pounds although most weigh 50 to 90 pounds and measure about 16 feet long. Read more... The Giant Octopus uses two alternating rows of suckers on its eight arms (not tentacles) to catch its prey and taste its environment. Mature females have 2,240 suckers, 280 on each arm; males have fewer because there are only about 100 on an arm that is used for mating. All those suckers are good for opening things. In laboratory tests and aquariums they can unscrew jar lids to get the food inside. In the wild they eat shrimp, crabs, clams, abalone and scallops. If it can’t pull a shellfish apart with its arms, the Giant Pacific Octopus uses its sharp, beak-like mouth to bite its meal open. The beak is made of the same substance as a human fingernail. Harbour seals, sea otters and sperm whales hunt the Giant Octopus which has three ways to avoid being eaten: propel itself backward by rapidly forcing water out of its body; escape in the cloud of ink it squirts at an attacker; change the colour of its skin and blend in with rocks and coral. Octopuses have no bones so they can hide in caves, crevices or under boulders. Females lay up to 100,000 eggs over a period of several days. Incubation of the eggs on the ceilings of their rocky dens takes seven months or longer depending on the water temperature. Throughout that time the female tends the eggs by cleaning and blowing oxygen over them. She does not eat and, after the eggs hatch, she dies. The newborns swim toward the surface, the size of a grain of rice, and spend one to three weeks drifting in the plankton until their head, or “mantle,” grows to about 14 millimetres. Then they settle to the bottom. The population of the North Pacific Giant Octopus is unknown and they are not listed as endangered. Octopuses have been fished commercially in B.C. with traps and by scuba divers, although some are inevitably swept up as bottom trawl bycatch. By the late 1980s Giant Pacific Octopus landings had climbed to about 200 tonnes per year because octopus is used increasingly by halibut fishermen for bait. Landings peaked in 1997 at 217 tonnes. Today, they are harvested in B.C. mostly by scuba divers in an experimental fisheries program.

Giant Pacific octopus
Enteroctopus dofleini
The North Pacific Giant Octopus can be found on the continental shelf of the North Pacific Ocean from the low-tide line to depths of 500 meters. The Giant Pacific Octopus is shy and intelligent and eat sharks (in captivity, anyway, they’ve preyed on spiny dogfish 3-4 feet long). In spite of that, they live about four years, longer than most octopus species.

As its name suggests, the Giant Octopus is the biggest species of octopus. One captured near Victoria, B.C. in 1967 tipped the scales at 70kg (156 pounds) and was almost 7.5 meters (23 feet) from arm tip to arm tip. The record weight is 600 pounds although most weigh 50 to 90 pounds and measure about 16 feet long.

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The Giant Octopus uses two alternating rows of suckers on its eight arms (not tentacles) to catch its prey and taste its environment. Mature females have 2,240 suckers, 280 on each arm; males have fewer because there are only about 100 on an arm that is used for mating. All those suckers are good for opening things. In laboratory tests and aquariums they can unscrew jar lids to get the food inside. In the wild they eat shrimp, crabs, clams, abalone and scallops. If it can’t pull a shellfish apart with its arms, the Giant Pacific Octopus uses its sharp, beak-like mouth to bite its meal open. The beak is made of the same substance as a human fingernail.

Harbour seals, sea otters and sperm whales hunt the Giant Octopus which has three ways to avoid being eaten: propel itself backward by rapidly forcing water out of its body; escape in the cloud of ink it squirts at an attacker; change the colour of its skin and blend in with rocks and coral. Octopuses have no bones so they can hide in caves, crevices or under boulders.

Females lay up to 100,000 eggs over a period of several days. Incubation of the eggs on the ceilings of their rocky dens takes seven months or longer depending on the water temperature. Throughout that time the female tends the eggs by cleaning and blowing oxygen over them. She does not eat and, after the eggs hatch, she dies. The newborns swim toward the surface, the size of a grain of rice, and spend one to three weeks drifting in the plankton until their head, or “mantle,” grows to about 14 millimetres. Then they settle to the bottom.

The population of the North Pacific Giant Octopus is unknown and they are not listed as endangered. Octopuses have been fished commercially in B.C. with traps and by scuba divers, although some are inevitably swept up as bottom trawl bycatch. By the late 1980s Giant Pacific Octopus landings had climbed to about 200 tonnes per year because octopus is used increasingly by halibut fishermen for bait. Landings peaked in 1997 at 217 tonnes. Today, they are harvested in B.C. mostly by scuba divers in an experimental fisheries program.

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