![]() She survives off her own fat stores until she succumbs to starvation. A mother will care for her hundreds of thousands of eggs with such intensity that she forgoes feeding herself in order to gently blow water over them to prevent algae from building up. They live far longer than other species, often reaching five years, but females care so intensely for their eggs it costs them their lives. They are expert mimics, taking on the colour and texture of the rocks and marine life around them.īut their lives are also marked by a grim and tragic cycle. Octopuses have long been known to be the most intelligent of the invertebrates. She suspects that part of the video’s popularity was due to the glimpse it provided of a fleetingly intimate and unlikely connection with a creature that often seems alien. On a recent trip to the grocery store, she was stopped in the aisle after someone spotted “the octopus lady”. Within days, it had received tens of thousands of views. Throughout the encounter, the octopus maintained its deep red colour, never taking on the greyish tone of a fearful or aggressive cephalopod.Įlated by her encounter, Humphreys posted the video online for friends and family. “It kept changing the lights on my camera system and fiddling with it,” she said. And it was just so amazing and inspiring.”įor the next 40 minutes, the octopus stayed close by, inspecting her dive equipment and taking a particular interest in her camera. “Every time I backed away from it, the octopus just kept coming towards me. These huge tentacles were up over my face and mask,” Humphreys said. “It was just crawling on my camera, crawling on my lips, giving me a hug. Her camera captured the curious cephalopod drawing closer and closer, its tentacles widening until it fully embraced her. See one of the coolest and exotic of the deep ocean creatures: The giant Pacific octopus.Many people are fans of the octopus, but few realize what an. The biggest specimen on record sported a tentacle span of 9.6 m, and an estimated weight of 272 kg. Humphreys started photographing the encounter – until the octopus had turned its attention to her. The largest octopus is the Pacific giant octopus Enteroctopus dofleini. It quickly approached her friend, grazing its tentacles up against the mask and regulator. Humphreys said that she occasionally spots them sheltering in their dens, but this time, within moments of immersion, the group made the rare sighting of an octopus out in the open. ![]() Their heads are distinctly narrower than the mantle width. Enteroctopus species have distinct longitudinal wrinkles or folds dorsally and laterally on their bodies. ![]() Members of this genus are characterized by their large size and are often known as giant octopuses. The group was also on the hunt for an enigmatic local: the giant Pacific octopus. Enteroctopus is a genus of generally temperate octopuses. I’ve completed more than 675 dives and I think this is some of the best diving in the world,” she said. But when you’ve got lights, you see every colour of the rainbow. On a cloudy morning, Andrea Humphreys and a group of friends slipped into the waters of the Salish Sea, off the eastern coast of Vancouver Island.Ī high school teacher in the town of Campbell River, Humphreys was eager to show a visiting friend the region’s underappreciated beauty. ![]()
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