And I'm Madeline Walden and this is Aquarium of the Podcific, a podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific Southern California's largest aquarium.
Join us as we learned alongside the experts in animal care, conservation and more.
Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific. I'm Erin Lundy, conservation coordinator for mammals and birds and animal care specialist.
And I'm Madeline Walden, the aquariums digital content and community manager. I'm very excited about this episode. This is our eighth episode. So of course, it's going to be about octopuses. Ooh, I just I specifically said like, No, we have to wait until the eighth episode for octopuses.
Really, I literally just got that. And I was like, Oh, that's such a good coincidence. And then I realized it was
very particularly planned it. But this episode is really, really great. We hear from two octopus specialists, our very own Brooke Hernandez who's an aquarist here at the Aquarium of the Pacific and one of our longtime collaborators Warren Carlyle from Octonation, which is the world's largest octopus online fan club.
You know, I can tell you're excited about this episode is usually you go Erin, what are we learning about today and today, you just fully, fully by yourself. You're like, listen here,
I don't have a favorite episode, our favorite animal
I understand. Now, I'm
really excited about this episode because we get to hear from someone who takes care of our octopuses on site, specifically our Giant Pacific Octopus. That's Brooke. And then we have Warren who just loves octopuses and has done so much with his nonprofit to educate the masses. Yeah, octopus is and how amazing these creature are. Warren always says, you know, octopus has had a really bad PR for a very long time. And so he's kind of taken over and I really refer to him as just octopus is PR manager.
That's a good title. I wish I could be someone's like an animal's. Okay, I'm Madeline's PR manager. She really likes octopus. Well, I think like I really love that Brooke gives us some perspective on what it's like directly caring for one individual species of octopus because our GPOs have a ton of personality. And apparently, each individual is also very different and individualistic. Madeline gets to meet all of them. I get to meet zero of well, that's not true. I think I've met Grindy and Grindy was wonderful.
I know. So in this episode, we mentioned Grindylow the Giant Pacific Octopus. And we recorded this episode at the end of June and we unfortunately just lost Grindy so we'll refer to her in the episode. You know, octopus lifespans are very short, unfortunately. But they're amazing animals despite their very short lifespan. And I really think that's for humans benefit because if they lived any longer they would just take over the world. They're too smart. Honestly,
kind of down I would tell a friend what they did with the world you know, like it's your turn but what you got going on? Warren
Everything would be very slimy.
Yeah, and?
lots of silly string poop everywhere.
I also really liked I liked our conversation with Warren a ton because I didn't know very much about different species of octopus or and he really is a great PR manager for them because he's giving me stickers. He's talking about how much he loves octos. And for someone who didn't know as much about them and Madeline's always been the octo superfan and I've, you know, kind of just known that they exist but not know too much about them. I fell in love with them just listening to Warren talk about them.
They're they're really amazing creatures. Well, we're gonna get into it. It's a little bit of a longer episode this one because we have two interviews, but I think they're both very enthralling. So I think our audience will really enjoy it. So let's get into it.
So today we have on Brooke Hernandez who works with our octopus here at the Aquarium. Brooke, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Hi, guys. Thank you so much for having me. I work with the Giant Pacific Octopus here at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. I'm an Aquarist II, and I've been here since July of 2021.
That's awesome. And so you have quite a long history with the octopus that we currently have. Right. I think her name is Grindy.
Yes. Grindylow is our female octopus that we have at the moment. She is 42 pounds. And she's been at the aquarium since February of 2022. So she's been here for for quite a bit.
How did you get started working with octopuses or specifically the Giant Pacific Octopus.
So I kind of have a weird way into the field. It's not super conventional. For me, I didn't know I wanted to do this job. So I in college, I actually have my degree in English and it wasn't till Yeah, it's super weird. It's like, like Brooke trivia. Yeah, so basically, I took a scuba course my last semester at Cal State Fullerton. I just needed to eat some units and it sounded fun and I absolutely fell in love with the ocean. So cool. Yeah, so like change. Yeah, basically I had a nice job. about the college I worked at, lined up and I pushed it all aside, my parents were very upset. And I took a minimum wage warehouse like fish house job at the nearest facility that would hire me. So from there, I pretty much was just open to taking whatever animal job opened up. I wasn't picky. I wanted it to be marine animals. But I wasn't even sure which ones that kind of mentality I've had in the field is that you don't know if you want to work with something till you do. And there's been a lot of things that surprised me that I thought I wanted to work with and a lot of things that I realized I did not like working with as much as I thought I would. So
it's a funny
realization you have after working like, I'm don't vibe with this animal.
That's that's kind of how it goes. You think you want to work with something. I really thought I wanted to work with sea turtles. That was what like my heart was set on. I was like, yes, sea turtles. And then I worked with them. I loved them. It wasn't your thing. I love them. I prefer them much more clever animals like the octopus.
I think it's so funny that a lot of our colleagues have degrees in a variety of things is degree in English. Someone has a degree
in advertising. Yeah, a lot of different paths to this field. And, you know, a lot of people come from like, Oh, I just volunteered one day, and I really liked it. And then I decided I was going to do this. And for me, I wanted to be a veterinarian and I went a totally different way and went with marine mammals and now weirdly know a lot about frogs. Like you know, like nothing is
the same thing. Like you know, you start working with one animal, and suddenly you're doing you're working with an animal that
is a frog
Everything goes back to frogs,
everything all roads lead to frogs.
And you can be like a cat person or a dog person so you can be a sea turtle admirer. And not someone who wants to work with sea turtle directly.
Yeah, absolutely. From afar. They're beautiful.
We had Adam on, he seems to really love working with our turtles, although he maybe share some frustrations about them being less clever than some of our other animals. Perfect. So I'm not I'm not alone. And you're not alone, but it really seems like he enjoys taking care of our sea turtles. And it's funny that personality types really seem to gravitate towards specific animals.
Sorry, one second. You have a spider under your collar.
Oh no. I'm so scared.
my gosh. I'm so sorry. I
want to keep this in the podcast.
Oh, it's a cricket.
Oh, thank goodness. Don't worry. That's one of my bugs.
I saw it and I was like, I can't let her be
in the
cricket. What happened? I was I thought it was a spider. Do you want to work with frogs? You might just carry on crickets in your collar
I got scared when I thought it was a spy. We have some spiders. You know, obviously every corner and I was doing some construction but it's been a weird day. But I was helping build something in the spidery part of the aquarium so I got scared that it was a spider but a cricket no problem. When the last time I fed my frogs is this morning so he's probably been riding
like felt bad because it's like you guys were on a roll and I don't want to interrupt anybody, but I was like 99% Sure there's a spider
as much as she's as much as you want to do. Oh, that's that's my friend.
That was a cricket. We're fine. Don't worry. He safely escaped into the studio somewhere. So now there's a cricket in here yeah. What if
we just hear him in future episodes? That would be cute. That's great. What's it what? We should name him? Brooke. You discovered him. What's his name?
His name is Brooke. Every time we hear crickets that's Brooke
Thank you for trying to save my life.
I mean, I wasn't relieved it was a cricket because I was just gonna grab it. Chuck it.
I didn't even see it. Good spot on my neck.
Yeah, I'm so sorry. I lost all of our team. No,
that was that was amazing. He
was a well interruption.
What I think I was going to say is you were wanting an animal who was a little more challenging, a little more clever. And I think that you probably now work with the most clever, maybe even the most intelligent animal at the aquarium very different than
anything else. They are their own
thing. Yes, definitely. It's nice because I have an animal that keeps me on my toes. There's no two days are the same. No two octopus are the same. We have two right now our small one is named Goji. She's just a baby. She's five and a half pounds. And then we have Gridylow our large lady who's 42 pounds and full grown. And the two of those ladies have completely different personalities. They have completely different relationships with me. They have different likes and dislikes every time you work with an Octo it's starting from scratch, which I really love. I love the challenge of it. I love the process of trying to build a bond with that animal and get to know that animal and get that animal in turn to know and you know, like me as well. I prefer when they liked me. Certainly more fun when they like you. So
how would you know if an octopus liked you or didn't Like to,
you'd probably be more likely to know if it doesn't like, it would be clear if they wanted to clear stay away from you. And what's honestly the most impressive thing about them is if they don't like you, they have the siphon on the side of their head. So they'll fill that whole mantle of there's full of water, and they will shoot water out of that siphon. And they can go up to 20 miles an hour, and it's like, pinpoint accuracy. Like I've seen them, like with someone they don't like hit them in the face, and that person run and the octo continue, like, just like, so over and over and over again, they don't like you, they will show you the siphon. That's
funny. Okay, but as someone who has been hosed down by an octopus, I will say, maybe, maybe it's not all only that they don't like someone. There's other reasons that they use, right?
No, absolutely. Absolutely. She
was holding my arm while doing that
she was keeping you. I don't know what you thought was happening. But I thought we were good. I thought we
were friends at
big brain energy there. But no, no, they do also use it as an expression of like I say like big feelings. Sometimes when they're really excited or they're really mad or any big feelings, they'll use it. But if an octopus continues to use it on the same person over and over and over again, that is a sign of dislike.
What is that adaptation for? Why do they have those siphons to begin with?
So out in the wild their siphons are used for swimming and getting away from predators. So they'll fill you know their head up with all that water. They'll push it out the siphon 25 miles an hour, and then they'll actually move that siphon between the two sides of their head to help them steer through the water. I didn't know they could do that. Yeah, it's it's pretty rad. Every now and then you'll see our Octo playing with their siphon in the exhibit two, which is really fun.
They're amazing, huh?
I'm learning something new every day.
Let's talk about their anatomy a little bit more. So I want I want to hear more definitely about the two octopuses we have and their differences. But I think this is a good time to talk about. What is an octopus? What makes an octopus? Yeah, all
these are not body parts I have. So it's hard for me to imagine some of these things. They
My understanding is that they have three hearts, they have blue blood, they have an ink sac, they have a beak. That sounds like an alien to me. What makes up an octopus?
I do definitely feel like they're like the closest thing we have here to extraterrestrials for sure. Honestly, what doesn't make up an octopus, they have just an array of amazing things about them. I feel like even I've worked with them for years. And I feel like I learned something new about them all the time. For starters, they have a beak instead of a mouth, which I think is really cool. So instead of like a shark or a dog with teeth, they're going to have a beak like a bird like a parrot would, which is a really creepy kind of cool fact, especially when you take into account that that beak is lined with a neurotoxin. And that neurotoxin causes like numbing, and then tissue breakdown in their prey. So when they eat, they don't even take bites, they actually use that toxin to break down their prey into like a jelly and then they slurp it up, which is so creepy. But so cool.
I keep learning things about animals. Like every time we do an episode about animal that I'm really unfamiliar with like the jellies, we'll see stars and lactose. I'm just like, what's happening right now. That's You're making that up, like make everything into jelly and then drink it like that. Wow. So they sort of digest their food out of their body by like biting it and then having it break down those proteins in those things
that's really similar to some other animals we've been chatting about like our sea stars
sea cucumber does similar thing to right where they digest externally but differently, but yeah, do they ever take like bites with their beak? Or will they just kind of
they can. They're fully capable of doing so and they they count every now and then but for the most part, their digestion is going to be breaking down and slurping up,
so do they where obviously the food goes in the beak. Where does the poop come out?
So the poop comes out and that's another call back to the siphon. The siphon is super important in the octo it does a ton of different things. It helps them with breathing. It helps them with steering it helps them hit keepers they don't like it also helps them poop. So the funny part about octopus that people love and don't necessarily always know is that they poop like silly string. Basically, it's like a little party in their tank. What's even cooler from the keeper standpoint is that I can go to another facility and if I see octopus poop, I know what their diet is composed of because the color of their poop was actually really indicative of what they're eating.
Oh, what color is our octopus is poop sorry, it's it's personal Grindy but
I can look up the chart to see like what it is right now. They're both pretty gray and there's a little bit of red in there. So
it looks like gray silly string what a party
so octopus has a beak, then they bite things and a neurotoxin comes out of their beak and digests whatever it is that they've bitten. Is it neurotoxin? Like a paralytic for their prey item?
Yes. So it's basically a numbing and a paralytic for their prey item. But that's also why we're very mindful of our hands is keepers because it would also serve as basically numbing to us. So we might not be able to pair pair that with the fact that the waters you know, 47 degrees and we lose feeling in our hands pretty fast, we might not actually be able to feel ourselves getting bit, which is why we have to keep an eye on our hands.
Definitely. Does every octopus have that neurotoxin or type of neurotoxin?
I know for a fact that all of the Giant Pacific Octopus do not super well covered on other species. Sometimes being octopus keeper. People are like, Oh, what's the Common Octopus? And I'm like, have never worked with one.
They're super different to you. Oh, yeah. Species.
Oh, for sure. For like, I know everything about this. Okay, it's awesome. So
we know about their beak, they have eight tentacles.
So they have eight arms. And the difference is going to be that the arms are basically when you have tentacles, tentacles are used for stinging. So an octopus and arms are non stinging. So the arms are used for basically grabbing things and they will bring things to their mouth. Or if you're, if you're like a jellyfish or something, you have tentacles, because those are stinging.
So they have eight arms, they have a neurotoxin, line, beak, they have a big head, what's in their head?
Is it a head?
So their head is called their mantle. But it's basically their entire body. So it's a like head in quotations. But really, it holds their three hearts, it holds their brain or nine brains. But we can dig into that one in a little bit. It holds liver, their liver, it holds gills. So it's basically their entire body. But it basically is mounted on top of them. So it looks kind of like a head, but it's called a mantle. That's everything,
all their organs are contained in the mantle, which is what looks like a head to us. And then they have eight arms that are each individually controlled by sounds like maybe they each get their own brain if they have nine,
that's exactly how it is. Each arm gets its own micro brain. And then they all talk to basically the central brain in the mantle. So when they say like each arm looks like it has a mind of its own, it literally does. So cool. We love to like take advantage of that too, because we want to keep them enriched and happy. So sometimes when we're feeding them, we'll put a different food item in each arm. And you'll have to see them process each arm separately for like, what is this? Do I want it Do I like it? Do I toss it you know,
and then on top of that their arms are in are covered in those suction cups which are tasting their food before they even make it to their mouth.
Yes, so each arm has about 250 suction cups, the total is right around 2000 or so on the animal. And each suction cup can individually taste and smell. And it can move about 10 pounds of force each. So you combine those together they can move unbelievable amounts of weight strong, strong octos very strong. And additionally with them being able to taste and smell it's how they pick what food they want. It's how they tell keepers apart.
They'll taste you to tell you apart. That's one way they can do
it. They also have pretty good eyesight too. So if you ever look at a Giant Pacific Octopus is i It has like a slit like a horizontal pupil and that's because they've actually got on each side a 180 view so they basically have like nearly a full 360 view at all times so you cannot sneak up on an octopus they can see all around them see Erin's face
I'm just I am processing all 8 of myarms are telling me to do this might be a silly question. Do their arms ever get in like disagreements with one another?
No, they all report to the same boss so they're like a team they're like co workers together good
coworkers that never disagree and all report to the central boss which is in the mantle. Yes, we are. We're learning a lot. It's
like a really good culture team. They sound good for
them honestly. Amazing.
I wish I had eight arms so you need a good org
chart for an octopus and all the arms. Yeah, so each of the suckers are they're called suckers. Yes
on their suckers, suction cups any of those things
each suction cup can move about 10 pounds of force Yes. Does that increase as they age or with the size of the suction cup like does the size of the suction cup? Yeah anything to them?
Yeah, definitely. So like that's like the average size of octopus can move. I don't think little baby Goji, five pound body is going to be able to move 10 pounds per suction cup lifting. She had she had trouble with her crab this morning. That was kind of big. So that's a general fact for the general sized octopus. can move about that much. So we're gonna
see Goji in there and she's just lifting, lifting weights in there. That's crazy.
So you're lifting you're curling rock. I love it. So we're at an interesting time. And by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have released and announced Goji. But we have to octopuses, one behind the scenes currently in one on exhibit. Let's talk about kind of their lifespan and why we would house two octopuses at the same time.
Yeah, that's that's actually the perfect time to have this conversation. They're kind of in a time of like a almost a yin and yang we're getting the start of one life and then the kind of the the winding down or the end of another. So for starters, we've got Grindylow, our 42 pound female and she's beginning to show signs of senesce. So senescence and an octopus, what basically happens when an octopus meet, meet sexual, the age of sexual maturity, they will, the females will lay eggs and the males even if they don't have another octopus to reproduce with, they will begin the end of their life, which is called senescence. So for the ladies, they'll lay eggs, and they will go ahead and guard those eggs for the remainder of their life, they'll start refusing food, they'll refuse play, their only job is to focus on those eggs and rearing them. And with the males, while they don't have eggs to necessarily cover, they will stop eating, they'll stop interacting, and they'll slowly start kind of decaying is an aggressive word, but it is kind of an aggressive process. So right now, Grindy is in the pre signs of that she's still eating really well, she's still interacting really well. By the time this airs though, that might not be the case. On the other flip side of the coin, we have Goji who's brand new, you know, five pounds and bright tailed and bushy eyed ready to see the world. You know, like I said that wrong, bright eyed and bushy tailed. There we go. See, I don't work with mammals. None for me. But she's got her whole life ahead of her so.
And speaking of that life, I mean, even with an animal like Grindylow who's so much larger than Goji, the lifespan is still relatively short compared to humans, or maybe compared to other animals at the aquarium. Oh, absolutely.
I mean, truthfully, they say GPOs live, you know, for between three and five years, but the five years really reserved for those GPOs and really cold Alaskan waters. And it's not seen very often, it's truthfully closer to three to four. And if the females are going to be protecting eggs for months on end, you're gonna see some nests right around three, by the time we get the octopus, there are already sub adults. So we're lucky if we have them for year, a year and a half, which is kind of a crazy turnover when you consider what an amazing animal they are, and how bonded we get.
It's hard every time I've been lucky enough to work with Brooke and work with their animals up close to. And it's it is a bummer every single time you know, but it's kind of like, at the same time. I think if octopuses lived any longer, I think they would just take over the whole planet. But yeah, we care for those animals even though that their lifespans are so much shorter and they are charismatic they do have you know, their own personalities that really shine through I think of group are one of our past Giant Pacific Octopus is who is a really special animal. And they're all special. But you know, I had I feel like I had a good connection with Groot. And then I
really liked you know, siphon spraying
big positive feelings, big big feelings like feelings.
I had big feelings about you too Groot. But to the point where you know when group passed, I think it's always really important for us to be transparent with our fan club for our animals when group passed. We get so much love from our audience. It's great helped me get through the pandemic, I learned so much about octopuses because of groups. And so these animals are making these huge impacts in their short lives. And I just think it's so amazing that we get to be a part of that.
Yeah, Madeline sent me a TikTok that she she sent me the comments of the TikTok from group absolutely wrecked me my desk at work, trying not to sob violently.
I know that they're really really specially animals that I'm so lucky to be a part of telling their story. And I'm excited to continue telling the stories of the animals we have still I think they're absolutely amazing creatures. I don't have a favorite but they can kind of sounds like you have a favorite in the first episode I do say our sea lions are are my favorite but when it comes to your she lied fish and invertebrate, for sure the octopus,
so we talked a little bit about like when we get them they are sub adults and they look like just a little octopus. You know, we have a five pound octopus out on our display right now. What is their actual life cycle? Where does it begin? How big are they when they start? And what how long do they stay really microscopic is my understanding.
So the females will lay their eggs and then when those eggs are born, they will have hundreds of 1000s of babies Wow have all the babies because the survival rate is like one in 10,000 100,000 Like it's great, not great. Not great at all. Because they mean they start they're smaller than an inch like they're teeny tiny so when you see an octopus like Goji that we have here and it's like wow, like you made it. Yeah, like you're, you're you're a fighter.
It was a definitely probably an interesting journey for sure. My understanding is that they started off super small like that and then you know as they get older and then there's a pretty sudden growth spurt Right? Kind of maybe around the time Goji out right now. Yeah, where she is She looks like an octopus. She's sizable for an octopus. What do you How big do you expect her to get?
It's so hard to tell, because I've had octopus senesce 10 pounds, and I've had them senesce 60 pounds. Wow. They their size. Whether it be in human care, or the wild is such it's so varied. So it's really hard to determine exactly what it would be. But yes, goji is currently in the time where she's growing basically 50% her way, every way. So if she was three pounds, last time, I weighed her, she's almost six. Now next time, I suspect she'll be close to nine like she's in that big growth spurt phase. So I try to basically and I'm kind of working on like a long term project of being more consistent about weighing them every month. So I can kind of chart out and see like, where's the plateau? Where, where can i In the future, look at our octopus population and be able to say, oh, based on this growth, I think this animal will senescent this time and then we can do a better job prepping, you know, the public prepping us ourselves for the next one and kind of understanding their lifecycle a little better, as
well. So senescence, and all of that process is relatively poorly understood in terms of when it will happen for an individual animal. And like, we don't have a lot of data on that.
Yeah, there's like kind of like, like, no way to know like, you know, when you're getting close your animals getting big to that age, they maybe aren't eaten as much they're you know, slowing down a bit. So you kind of have an idea. But every it's so hard to tell sometimes you think like this animal should be any day now. It seems fine. And then other times like Grundy grandi caught me a bit off guard, I wasn't expecting her to senesce sooner she did
and what signs did you start seeing with grande that indicated that she was starting to senesce. Um, so
a lot of her senesce actually started while I was on vacation. I was gone for two weeks, and I came back to like, Hey, your Octo has been doing X, Y, and Z. And I'm like, that's just not normal behavior. Yeah. Which is why it's so important that us keepers, like make sure we know our animals normal behavior, because that's the first indication no two octaves are going to send us the same, they're not going to have the same signs. But if you know your animals normal behavior, you will be able to pick apart something that they don't normally do. So basically, when they briefed me when I got back from vacation, I was like, boo, I think something's wrong. Yeah, for her.
It's really interesting to think of like, how individualistic their personalities are uneven their lifecycle can be, is there any evidence of like environmental factors that might encourage senescence, like if there's hormonal cues from the opposite sex in the wild, you know, things like that, that might,
there's a lot of theories, I don't think there's a lot of concrete knowledge about it.
It's really nice that we have sort of someone like you, who's kind of keeping track of all of their life stages and their weights and trying to put together some pattern because I think something that sometimes gets overlooked at zoos and aquariums, we have this very focused inside look at these animals lives that we can't really get just by going out and doing research on animals is what how are you going to find the same octopus in the ocean again? And how are you going to weigh that animal and do all those things. But for you, you're able to get weights on the animal understand that growth patterns and maybe look for patterns that could indicate Hey, we need to do something different for their health care or make a change in their management to be good for these animals. And I think that that's a really important part of Zoos and Aquariums is understanding these animals just a little bit better, and getting information we would never get from just trying to find them in their natural habitat. So that's really cool.
Yeah, we have like an invaluable resource right in front of us that we can learn from and it helps us provide better care for the animals. So it's just like a win win all around.
That's really neat. Do you feel like you develop a very individual relationship with the animals and they get to know you as a person and have a different relationship with you than others?
Definitely. So I've worked in the past where a bunch of keeper share an octopus and I've been part of that and then I've worked where I am now where I am Aquarium of the Podcific strength Pacific Octopus keeper, which is super cool to be able to say what a title kind of a dream to be honest. When they told me I knew I got the job. I was super happy to be a part of a facility like this like I can go on and on about this facility. Absolutely love it here. I've worked a lot of places and this place is just incredible. But anyways, I'm gushing but I finished but ya know, I even in my interview, I didn't really mention my Giant Pacific Octopus experience too much because every facility has like a line out the door for people who want to work with it and I you know, wasn't going to think I didn't think I'd be coming in and you know, getting the coolest job. They told me my first day I got the Giant Pacific Octopus. I texted my entire family all my friends. I was like I got the octopus It was I couldn't I couldn't believe it I'm so it's
so well deserved. You're so great with the octopuses and it's been really cool to work with you and work with those animals. It's awesome. You're so personable for someone who works with an animal that's not necessarily personable.
That's really funny because if you ask like most of my friends or family, they say I'm pretty introverted. But like, I will nerd out about octopus all days, the ones that I like, come out of my shell, like you want to know about octopus, let me
tell you something about lacto.
But yeah, to circle back to what you were asking me before I went on that tangent about up basically, you're asking about like our relationship with them and all of that and there's definitely a learning curve not just with me learning them but them learning me and kind of figuring out likes and dislikes and things because like no octopus are the same like Grindy absolutely loves head rubs the rubber head all day long, she'll sit there and enjoy it. Groot was like, he was kind of lukewarm on them. I don't know about Goji yet. We're still we're still working on that. So I mean, after head rubs. Exactly. I hope so I like when they like.
It's really cute videos of Brooke pet basically petting the octopus like a puppy. Like, it's very simple. Like,
this was nice little massage. So with that, I mean, I'm guessing the octopus are coming up and choosing to interact with you. And so they don't know, it's nice to see that the animals are able to have so much choice and control in their habitat and their environment and whether or not they're going to participate in the things you might ask them to do. Like, how do you weigh in octopus?
Yeah, absolutely. It's really nice that they want to be there. That's part of my job learning their likes and dislikes, I make sure that they want to be a part of things. One of those things being basket training. So I'll actually basket train the octopus to climb into a laundry basket, we'll take it out, we'll drain all the water. I know it's a silly thought. But they just sit at the bottom of a little laundry basket and put them on a scale. And that's how we weigh them every month. But we don't want that to be we want as much of the things that they do to be absolutely voluntary. We want them to not only do it willingly, but also enjoy doing it. So we make sure we fill it with lots of rewards. If they like tug of war, we play tug of war, they like splash time we play splash time, whatever they like, that's my job to figure out to learn that animal and to make sure that we have those things available to them. And it's super helpful too, especially when we do things like tick tock lives, guest encounters, stuff like that nobody wants to see you poke an animal with a stick and be like, come over here. That's not fun for anybody that's not appropriate for the animal. So it's really nice to open those doors and have Grundy come flying over. So excited to see what are we
doing
here, and it's square, they know sometimes I swear they know that they're online, she's so
good on TikTok especially. But it's so nice to because you will even be able to show guests like here I'm handing this animal food. So it's not a hungry animal. And it's like tosses the food away a lot of the times like they don't want the food or the toys, they want the interaction. And that's because you know, we build on a relationship and make sure that we're giving that animal what it wants, every time it comes over. So they're they're very, very spoiled here.
It's, I think we talked about it in the sea otter episode just a little bit about like, you can put a handful of shrimp right next to a sea otter, or you can give them enrichment that allows them to practice naturalistic behaviors, like put a bunch of shrimp in a toy and freeze it. So they have to hit it on a rock forever to get all the food out. And animals so often choose to do the thing that is a naturalistic behavior or is more engaging, because yeah, they could eat a snack, but they could work to get that snack. And for some reason, sometimes that means so much more to them and is so much more enjoyable.
Oh, absolutely. Especially with the octopus, I kind of have the mentality of there's no free meals. In the wild, they would spend so much of their time hunting and foraging and exploring for their meals that I don't I almost never unless I'm working on a training or behavior like basket training, I almost never will hand my Octopus a piece of food that is boring for them. And it takes away an opportunity to really enrich that animal and give them good stimulus. Instead, I'll hide it in a call or hide it in a puzzle feeder. I mean, I have an entire cabinet that closet, three year old would love. It's got Lego blocks, it's jars. It's got everything in there, it has everything toy boats, you name it, we have it for them. And we use that I mean, the I believe the AZA standard for the minimum required enrichments for Giant Pacific Octopus is about three times per week because she's considered an iconic species. And I aim to offer my octos enrichment two to three times per day. So that's awesome. They deserve it. They're smart animals and
nine brains, you got to tire all those brains out a lot of brains.
And what's really cool too, is that I've noticed when you give those animals more enrichment, they become more active and then they're better display animals too. So it's like everybody wins.
Absolutely. I love that. Let's talk about their exhibit. little bit. I think one of the number one questions we get on social media is has your octopus ever escaped? Is she a troublemaker? Yes, she's a troublemaker. But the exhibit I know is very secure. Because I think in popular culture, you know, there's been movies about octopuses who just run around an aquarium and that would be really dangerous for the octopus to
do so maybe for us. For us,
I would fear for the fish or my other tank. Smart. Let's talk about the safety requirements with an animal that is so intelligent, what is her habitat look like?
So we definitely pull out all the stops when it comes to the safety of the animals. The first and this is kind of a fun fact that a lot of people don't know and that's that the entire top of the exhibit is lined with astroturf. So that's the one material that octopus cannot stick to for whatever reason
so funny. That's such a specific discovery
no to everything of material bring that astroturf things did
they line up so funny? What that's hilarious so they can't sit I'm like assuming it's because they're suction cups can't quite get a grip on any one thing
you know, it's it's a mystery to us all why that's the one thing
like the way it feels.
I don't really love astroturf either on my like, you know, as a tactile sensations on your on my side. It's interesting, okay, so we have astroturf
on top of that, so the the display exhibit the one that guests can see from the outside, that one has four latches on it that all locks shut. So between those two things, they're very well kept in there. And then are holding behind the scenes. If you were to do a guest encounter or whatever, you might be able to see that tank. That one is screwed down with like metal screws all around the lid and then those are clamped down with clamps on top of that, so
all out all Oh, yeah, high security because they can fit through basically anything that is the size of their beak. Right,
exactly. So like the beak on an animal like Goji, God, I think it would probably be smaller than a quarter. So any space the size of a quarter or bigger she could get through
their whole body through the whole body through it's what for anyone who's never felt an octopus, which was probably most people if I had to guess. What do they feel like to you?
Madeline's got the best description for this hands down? I can't beat it and wet
gummy bear.
Okay, yeah, by that I get a 42 pound wet gummy bear.
Depending on the octopus and its preferred style of play. They can be very sticky with their suction cups too. So a lot of times even in the summer, I keep long sleeves on because they will leave. We call them octopus kisses. But they basically look like a bunch of hickeys all the way up and down my arm. And in public, it will look like I have like chicken pox or some type of disease Brooks disease.
Oh, no, those are
just octopus of honor. Anytime I walk out of the halftime just like rolling up my sleeves like Yeah.
It's like a handful of them like a little line of them. It's cute. And it's kind of like look at when it's your whole like when they've covered when I've had to that like tug of war because that's how that Mark ends up there. It's tug of war. So when I have 240 pound octopus, and both of them like tug of war, I end up just
covered, damaged.
And I'm just like, This is how you want to play. So
we call them Octo pucks now. Rockbox. Wow, that's really fun. So we feel like a wet gummy bear. They can be sticky or less sticky, depending on how they want to engage with you. And their skin texture, at least can that change in order to camouflage a little bit better? Or what does their skin texture do? Like I know they can get more wrinkly or less wrinkly?
Yes, their skin texture is their skin is amazing. So their entire skin is covered in cells called chromatophores. And those will basically talk to their brain and decide what color they want to change what texture they want to change. And it's super important because like we've kind of been saying this whole time like they're really smart. They're really like big squishy bodies. But they have no exoskeleton they have no protection from predators other than their big brain and their camouflage. So they're able to use their brain and their camouflage to basically match their environment they can be as dark of a shade of red as you can think of they can go pale why everything in between all the browns. They can also be really smooth if they need to match like a rock surface. They can be really rigid if they need to look like algae so they can really display a complete array of colors and textures. Which is so cool because when you really think about it, they are so vulnerable just all by themselves.
They're amazing to see that camouflage and action or even to see that color change when you're feeding an animal and it gets excited so it changes color. layer
that's my favorite part is a keeper. They're kind of like a big mood ring. That's perfectly we should do octopus mood. Offer something
coming soon to the Tick Tock near you. I love it.
What does this color me? So what are the different colors mean?
So they vary a little bit octopus, the octopus, but this is one of the ways where they're generally similar. So I like the big red flash and the big bright red color that they usually flash when we open the barn doors. That is they're ready to party color that is like I'm coming over, I'm gonna hang out. I'm gonna, you know, if I'm trying to work, I'm gonna steal your tool. They're, they're ready, and they're there. And they're excited. They have this modelled color where they're a little bit red and a little bit white. And they have this like, really rigid texture. And that's usually their thinking cap color. So that's like I gave them
that's like a good looking really hard right now. That's what it is.
It really is. No, they think hard. They have nine brains. Yeah.
Actually think less, if all like that would be really nice.
I think it's so concentrated in those nine too much thinking oh my goodness, in that donut brain just going around and around. Yeah, I always recommend if you're visiting the aquarium and you see an octopus habitat and you walk by it, definitely take a second to really look because you could just walk past it not even realizing that there's an animal right in front of you sometimes literally right in front of your face. People will miss it.
I am the keeper here. And I can't tell you how many times I have been like, oh my god did my Octopus escape. And I know it can't. I know it can't. But it's always a fear. She literally just today I did it. I was looking in there. And I was like, Where is she? And I'm like, okay, she must just be you know, in a corner that maybe I can't see from display, which is really surprising because on display, there's almost nowhere she can hide. Like, there's a 99.9% chance that you can see that octopus and you just don't know it. So I go to the top and I'm like, I don't see her here either. She was just so well camouflaged behind this little piece of algae that like even me who knows them and like sees them every day. So please do
that algae there.
Yeah, exactly. Literally designed the tank myself. I mean when she doesn't tear it apart. So it's looking a little rough. It's
her fault. Let's talk a little bit about that. So do you ever dive with the octopuses?
Yes, so I dive the tank water is the coldest in the building. It's 47 degrees. Yeah, yeah, it's it's cold. It's one of the funnest things to share when you do a guest encounter because people can barely stand to touch the water so they can't even imagine being submerged in it. But yes, preparation
do have to do to dive a habitat so cold.
A lot of really thick wetsuits is kind of and then just a lot of Moxie truthfully, deep breaths. Like you can do this, you got this you love your job, you love the
resolve, and a sick wetsuit. And that's
Wim Hof breathing your.
But I will say it, it really is a big draw to be able to dive with the animal because if I had to dive that tank and the animal wasn't in there, it would just be miserable. But like, when you get in there, the octopus generally loves to interact with the diver. Too much. Oh, absolutely. I've had I have to bring spare tools because they always love to steal the tools in the second year. Like here you have this one. They're like, Oh, well, I want the one you
like that's not good anymore. I want that one. Yeah,
they've stripped off white belts. They're really Grundy is actually I'm a little bit relieved to not be diving with crunchy any longer. She really had it out for she really wanted the respirator
out of my mouth. Oh, here's a video of that on our Tiktok. We'll link it in the show notes. But an ideal Yeah, she was like, this is the coolest bubbles who doesn't like
bubbles. She absolutely loved it, which is like fine. You know, it's all let her have it. But yeah, I needed to read so I have to stop working. And then wait for her to give it back. And I'm just sitting there freezing. A dive that I could do in like 3545 minutes takes like an hour and a half when I'm sitting there waiting for Grundy to get my reg back. Homemakers.
Is there any danger with diving with an octopus?
No. And it's so interesting because even when I started here, I had never actually dove with one. Other facilities. Every facility has very different rules about that, because they do have a mouth with a beak that could easily penetrate a wetsuit. But for whatever reason I asked them whatever reason they don't bite us while we're in there. And I think it's because they don't view us we're not a prey item. So while they like to explore the things we have in our hands and our body and our faces often. If you think the suction cup marks on the arm are weird, there's really no way to explain to people why you can cut marks on your face. During COVID When we wore masks, I could you know cover it but now I'm just like out in the world with bruises on my face the octopus on the face. Yeah, it's a when at least they're bruises. It looks like something happen they get to a point where it just looks like my face is a little dirty.
People are like, No, that's, that's my Octo kisses.
So it's always an adventure. But yeah, they're very curious animals they come over they cause a lot of distraction. Definitely a lot of ruckus and no sooner do I go in there and set up the rocks really pretty and make little beautiful algae this and that and create a little caveat of this. Do they rip it all apart? And
it's your version of pretty she has to live in there and he has to redecorate it
functionally and they see star goes here. So there are other live animals in their exhibits with them. Right we I know there's been sea stars. There's a really cool looking blue one notes in there right now. It's new. I just took a picture of it today.
We have two Simpsons stars in there Simpsons stars.
It was crossing its little arms and I thought it was
off. They used to be in our coastal corner touch lab actually. But they we ended up moving them into GPO to see if they would be better displayed there because they're a really unique, rare cool. I haven't seen him yet. Yeah, they're out and about we have the sea cucumbers are in there. They're all out and about today, too. They've been in great mood lately. We've got Velcro stars, which are exactly as they sound, they basically stick like Velcro. So when I'm in there diving and I try to peel one off my arm, it then gets stuck to my neoprene glove, which I then try to peel it off with my leg and it gets stuck to my neoprene leg. I don't know because Shin
what is
it? They do that? Seriously? Yeah, they they are unbelievably sticky. I didn't believe it till I actually experienced
it. Both sides of them are just the bottom that sticky. It's the whole thing, the whole
thing. Because the bottom side has to be the top side has the material that sticks like Velcro. So between those two things, it's just like, rolling it off one hand
could be so incredibly frustrating to see. The octopus ever interact with the other animals that are in their exhibit, do they?
So we're definitely very picky about what we put with the octopus. In a perfect world. We'd love her to have lots of tank mates but she would eat them all because they are monsters. Yeah, they're they're predators. And they're smart and they're fast and there's not a whole lot that could get away from her. So we definitely keep her with a lot more inverts. She's aware of them they they share certain roles with one another like the anatomy is like to eat her poop.
Symbiosis
stars, whatever food she discards and says I don't want to eat this today. I don't like my clam, you know, whatever it is, she's being picky about they'll go ahead and clean up off the bottom. So they have a they have a relationship. It's a limited one. But in general octopus, Giant Pacific Octopus are solitary animals, they're dead animals, they are much happier alone. They choose to be alone. If we were to try to give you know Goji or Grundy a friend, they would kill and eat that friend. Yeah, so they're not um, animals that would enjoy a tank mate. They're kind of like an only child,
except I heard that Grundy kept a pet crab for quite some time.
That was amazing. So every now and then when we do like kelp runs or things we ended up with kelp crabs on some of our kelp. So there was a kelp crab that was like probably like three inches, a good size for grandi something she really should have, like, devoured immediately. So you know, we we do have a live crab program here at the Aquarium of the Pacific. And we go ahead and we usually pick up food from a life seafood market and we allow the crabs to hunt it or sorry, we allow the octopus to hunt it just like they would in the wild. It's great enrichment. So this kelp crab was going to be part of that. Basically, I put him in the tank and pretty much figured the rest was history. Grundy would take care of it. And I noticed it was still in there a couple hours later. And I'm like this is weird. And fast forward a few months. She never ate that crab. I don't know what it was about that one crab It was big enough that it should have at least piqued her interest. But for whatever reason, she decided that one was her buddy, and were
you giving her other crabs in the meantime that she would eat or was that kind of like well, you still have that crab? No, she
would still get the weekly so the ones that we do for our live crab program are rock crabs and Dungeness crabs. So we get those from the live seafood market so she'd still get her weekly crab.
He just left the one and she would
eat those other crabs but she just always left the one I mean she eats multiple days. And they really weren't. Yeah, it was a strange I've. I've never seen anything quite like
that's I am just so tickled by that. So funny.
Grundy moved out with senescence and she's in our back holding area and go she moved in but the kelp crabs still lived in the tank right?
Did for a day or two totally did until it didn't so good you did the natural normal thing that a crab should do when it sees a delicious kelp grab just chillin in the tank and took care of it so
circle of life, so he got him good she
got like shouldn't move the kelp crab with grandiose I didn't really think too it's just such a weird thing I've never
heard from my roommate I've been worried about kelp crab
really went too far.
And Goji just like oh boy. Well,
I love that story.
That's a really good.
It's so weird. I've never seen anything like I didn't understand it.
Have you heard from kelp crab recently?
Hasn't texted
me back. I don't know what's going on. I ate all the other crabs. Crabs. Cool. Well, goji Goji got him.
Yeah, goji Goji Goji. He's got a real spunky personality. So when we give grandi like the live crab she takes her sweet time everything's done on grindlays time. So she would take her sweet old time kind of mosey around sometimes even like like mess with them a little bit first and I'm like, oh my god, can you just take care of that'd be mean don't be mean like be natural. Go Gee just got her first minus the kelp crab first. Yes, minus that one. She got her first live crab feed today since coming to our facility and she took it down in record time. I go pro. Yeah, she's she's got that crab never heard of her.
Do crafts.
She was not paying rent. Oh, boy.
Oh man. I'm so I'm so tickled by that story. I love it. Do you have any other octopus stories to tickled by? Oh, there are I'm not tentacle. That joke doesn't work. I've tried to use it on social media. I'm
a real sucker. Well speaking social media do you want to do we do have some social media questions for you? People on Instagram really wanted to talk to someone who takes care of an octopus because it's a really interesting job. And one of the questions we got was what's the difference between an octopus and squid? So we
kind of touched base on it a little bit, but there's going to be a lot of differences. i My expertise is in Giant Pacific Octopus and not so much squid. So I can just say that squids have tentacles tentacles have stinging components, and octopus have arms. So that's really the big one. Squid also have a variety of you know different places. They are different temperatures. I can speak on behalf of the Giant Pacific Octopus that it's the largest octopus. It is in cold water and its range is going to be basically anywhere from like, say SoCal kind of loosely they're out here, but they're not as abundant all the way up to cold waters of Washington, Alaska, Japan, so that would be my expertise on Giant Pacific Octopus and me kind of dancing around talking about squid. I feed a lot of squid I don't certainly work with lamb. Oh yeah,
cousin do eat
mammals.
That's true. I guess I really like that drop. No, don't drop it.
I won't drop it. I will drop it sky once
Scott. Do they have other relatives cephalopods what other cephalopods exist
Yeah, so we have a few actually in the building so I know our SoCal gallery that's going to be opening up I know that's going to be featuring a California to spot octopus our trop gallery just got a Common Octopus that has a really great personality and is out and about a lot so you should definitely check that out. Yeah, name
is cheddar.
We crumpet also crumpet
So fun fact. All of our octopuses are named after the first letter of their species name so Giant Pacific all G's common all C's to spot T's. Day octopus DS.
The two spot we have now is tortellini
because they're so clever with their names. I love Goji as a name to
what's the cutest Octo name that we've had that we've had that you know that I you know have come across probably
the cutest one I think we've had here that I know of is I think Gumball wasn't one Gumball which is really cute first,
first octopus.
Gumball was my first
How do you tell the difference between a male and a female octopus?
So the way you would tell the difference is if you're facing them to your left side, their right side, the third arm on the right, if it's a female, the suction cups will go all the way to the tip. If it's a male, the suction cups will stop about two inches shy of the tip. And that will be their male reproductive organ the heck Takata LIS
hectic kondylis.
Yes, all the fancy word. Sounds like Nautilus.
Nautilus cephalopods what's a nautilus?
They're in the cephalopod family.
Why do they get Yeah? How come nothing else is a shell?
I don't know. I didn't make them they are really cool Nautilus so the octopus is related to we're talking about squid. Cuttlefish in Nautilus. Cool. So speaking of kind of what they're related to, are they a mammal? Are they a fish? Are they a secret?
Third thing they word?
Are they a bird? You have a bee
they're technically an invertebrate because they don't have a backbone. But it's so interesting because when you think about invertebrates, mostly that are comprised of things like an enemy see stars I don't want to say things of lesser like like knowledge because like we don't necessarily know all we don't know your status. Anyway. I don't understand maybe every facet of a sea star an enemy
is doing calculus.
But they are part of that family, which is so interesting, because they're so evolved and they're so smart. And it's interesting because there's so much legislation being created for Giant Pacific Octopus and octopus in general because they don't fall under an easy umbrella. It's not a fish. It's not a shark. It's not a you know, invert it is an invertebrate but it's just so much more than that.
Can you tell how old an octopus is by looking at it?
Not really. So like, like we were saying earlier, I've had octopus nests at 10 pounds. I've had them senesce 60 pounds. The largest one ever recorded was a total anomaly, but it's worth mentioning that it was 600 pounds. Three pounds 30 feet. Each GPO Where did I live probably like Alaska or somewhere really cold
it's like a wall no bigger than Parker the ceiling Ryan? I mean, St. Louis
850.
Okay. He's He's not 30 feet. 30 feet. Let's so
scary. It's worth saying that's a complete outlier. It was like
a mutation or do you think that maybe they lived to be big or
something crazy happened with that? It was a total outlier, but it is worth mentioning.
When did this happen?
Is it still with
recently within the last 10 years estimating? Are they growing that big?
Stumbling block it's not gonna show up here. Don't worry. It's not gonna show up in the middle of the night at your house.
smartest animals in the entire world. I don't think you're under 30 feet long. It could probably survive out of water at that.
Peak, this is my favorite. That's toe. Aaron's not scared of octopus. But that's You seem scared
of an octopus.
That's too much. I don't need to know about that anymore. Tell us about the respiratory system.
So because they're invertebrates, they breathe underwater, so they don't come to the surface to breathe or anything. They have gills. And that's basically one of the functions of their hearts. So they've got three hearts. And they've got a couple of different functions with those hearts wants to circulate. Blood wants to circulate water over their gills. It's just really cool that they have so much niche anatomy. So the
three hearts do different things. So it was once a water circulation. I like I know frogs have a limp heart and then they have like a regular heart. Oh, interesting. It's interesting. It's funny that like was we're talking about autism like Kerala like frogs. They have a lot of it seems like they're very weird, very niche. And now they have multiple hearts. So man, everything all roads lead back. I've never seen a 600 pound 30 foot long drawn out yet when they discovered that we are going to make where would you live Alaska. That's crazy. So they have a lot going on just in the respiratory system in general. Someone else wants to know how good are their senses, including their eyesight and their hearing.
So their eyesight is pretty good. We discussed earlier how they have the horizontal pupil that allows them to see basically 360 all around them. There's no sneaking up on them which is cool. But additionally they also have a lot of structures in their eyes that are very similar to ours. So that's why they have things like light sensitivity so that's why even on our octopus tank we have a please no flash photography. During encounters. We asked for no flash photography and that's because their eyes are sensitive like ours and we wouldn't like a flashlight in our eyes either. When it comes to another sense of there's no hearing is one people ask about a lot. They don't necessarily hear like you and I do but they can't Don't feel vibrations so they can feel the vibrations of my voice when I'm baby talking to them
occasionally noise now I
had my boss walk back there before and I've been like, oh, sorry, I wasn't she's like Baby Talking the octopus. Yeah.
That's an important part of their care. Okay, sensing
these vibrations. Yeah. Okay, chill.
Good vibration. Absolutely. But so yeah, they don't necessarily hear like we do, but they feel and that's also why we ask people not to tap on the glass. That's a good practice you should have all around the aquarium, just, you know, being good stewards and being good to the animals and being good viewers for the animals. But they can feel the vibrations as well too, which is really unique and cool.
How long does an octopus stay in one place in the wild? Do they have a home? Do they kind of are they migratory in some way? Are they nomads and they're just going with the flow? Nomads?
GPOs specifically.
So for them, there's not really a right or wrong answer. I can speak more generally to it. They're not migratory. So you're not going to have one that starts in Japan and then takes a summer trip to SoCal and then goes back to Japan like they don't work or anything like that. Yeah, they're
not just boarding an airplane.
Submarine just latches on. Goes for a ride. Yeah, no, they're not migratory. They basically are going to pick a home, they're going to pick a den and that's going to be their home for as long as it's safe as long as it's feasible. So, you know, if they're pushed out by something else, if they feel uncomfortable, they might switch homes, you know, on a weekly basis. If they're chillin, and there's no one else around to challenge that territory or making them feel uncomfortable, they can hang out there a few months. And what's really cool is a great way to like find an octopus den and like if you ever find one you should never touch in the wild always like watch at a distance. All of those things but a great way to look for an octopus Den is to look for this is so morbid, but look for the carcasses of crash monsters and yeah, clams because they will leave they'll basically eat their food in their den. And then they'll use their siphon to kick out all the extra and the things they don't eat.
Do they decorate their homes? Yeah, they have
been known some some types to decorate a little bit but it's it's mostly just like getting rid of the shell of the dead animal they basically it's it's like more but decorating
decor to some they have oddity shops everywhere. People have shells
in their house kind of like like decorating your house for Halloween. Skeletons
just imagining like a little like chicken carcass, like you're sitting in a display in my house like you ate that.
Except for it would be like on your porch basically, it'd be like if you open the door and you just chucked it off your porch. And like sometimes it hit your porch other times in the lawn sometimes it roll in the street
that just hold that animal just throwing all my trash out my door. Don't do that. Either. An octopus you can you get away with a lot. Yeah, octopuses,
you know, no, they can do what they want.
Well, Burke, this has been a very entertaining episode, I have learned so much about octopus, including things that I'm scared of now. So thank you
free, brand new.
Scared of the ocean like I've grown up basically in the ocean. But I had never known that there was a 30 foot 600 pound GPO existing out there when I was in the ocean, and I probably would have gotten out at that point. But I really appreciate it and you
can get through this. Aaron, I should be back in the ocean one day.
What if Goji ends up being 600 pounds and 30 feet long? What will we do?
Uh, we, we would have to rehome her 100 pound mark, I think that's about the threshold of what we can
go G and like blue blue cavern or something like
that actually would probably be the appropriate place.
That would make my job so easy. Over 500 pounds, I'd be set she's
just the height of blue Cameron.
I'll let her know we have big lofty aspirations.
But with all that being said, Is there anything you would recommend to anyone listening? How could you help that octopus in their natural habitat?
I mean, not to like promote our own aquarium but obviously supporting the aquarium visiting the aquarium anything like that we do a ton of conservation work for not just octopus but all the animals. So that's a definite a nice, easy, fun way you could bring your whole family we've got awesome things here. It's a great facility. Additionally, the there's a lot of resources on our website. I'm not super brushed up on them, but things like seeing when you get seafood making sure that you're getting seafood from places where they're following sustainable seafood fishing. That's a big one. You know, we want to make sure we're not depleting the ocean of the animals that things like octopus need D so being responsible in that way but like I said, there's tons of resources online, our new SoCal gallery is going to be full of information and resources that actually is working towards connecting people to the aquarium and to the ocean. So that's another great place to check out.
And talk to me exciting and stuff.
I think the octopus is such a great ambassador species to number one, no other octopuses in the ocean, but also just the ocean in general. Because I think when you find something out about an octopus, I know this is true for me. And maybe you today you find one thing about an octopus and you're like, wait, wait, keep going. Tell me more. Tell me more. I like this lives out there. Okay, I want to protect our oceans. I want to protect, you know, octopuses habitats, the fact that this amazing creature is out there. And it's you know, it's up to us to take care of its home.
Exactly. And I mean, honestly, you don't soon forget meeting an octopus even just seeing them move around. They're incredible animals. I'm obviously not biased at all. They are so special and so unique that they really do serve as ambassadors for not just their species, but the entire ocean.
Absolutely. Cool. Thank you so much, Brett for coming on today. Of course, this might be one of the longer episodes because I mean, how could we not just talked about octopus
said I could talk about them all day. Like I just love them so much. But yeah, thank you guys so much for having me. Yeah, it's a blast.
If you guys move around the aquarium and you see someone diving in the octopus habitat, it's probably Brooke wave. Hi, if Brandi doesn't have her respirator in her otherwise, Brooks probably standing breathing at the surface waiting for a return. If you see someone around Rakdos it's probably broken cheese. Send some good vibes and kelp crab.
Awesome. Thanks, bro.
Yeah, of course. I did hear just a rumor but the 600 pound when I think eight a couple people named Aaron. But there's just a rumor.
I'm Warren, thank you so much for joining us on Aquarium of the Podcific today. How are you? I'm doing great. So happy to be here. Warren. Yes, you are the founder of the world's largest octopus fan club. King of the Actos are so honored to have you on our podcast today. But we have to know why octopus is.
So the story is is I went to an aquarium when I was younger. And I'm very nervous or divergent. Every single time I see something I liked. I made flashcards about it. And I went to the library to like make flashcards about the octopus. And the librarian was like there's no books here on the octopus. And I was like, oh, that's kind of weird. So I went to library. And so then I went to the bigger library. And there were only things that like I couldn't really understand like they were like academic journals and stuff. And so I just remember after that day, just thinking, wow, like, this is my favorite creature. I had this open loop, I guess. And I just started to want to learn more and more about it. And so when people ask me, What's your favorite animal? I always say the octopus because there's so much we don't know about them. Like they don't really even have that many books. And that was just the story that I kept saying over and over again. There's so
much we don't know about them. But I feel like you're an expert. Yeah. Like, yeah.
I figure it out to why. In 2015 When Simon Connery wrote the book, The Soul of an Octopus. In the first couple pages, she she basically says, you're probably wondering why there aren't that many books are there that celebrated a lot. And I was like, after I read that I was like, You're right. They're not. And, and she's like, they've never really had a good PR agent. And I think that's what I had it in my head that I was just like, oh, that's me dream. Yeah, dream job. Put me in coach. Like, I will be the octopus, PR agent.
I love that so much. Okay, so how did that love for an octopus grow into Octo nation.
So for those of you who are listening, it's you know, sometimes you look around for things. And I remember for the octopus, I was looking around for something to read. And I never found it. And then finally I was just like, why don't I just write what I want to read. And so I started kind of pro flat profiling. The octopus is like the superhero of the sea. They live in every single ocean, they're along every coastline. And depending on where they live, they have like this unique superpower, or adaptive ability that allows them to be master of that given environment. And so I started just profiling them and in really fun ways, and those posts started taking off and going viral. And then people started telling me this is the first time I've ever seen this species. This is the first time I've ever heard about this, you know, superpower, this adaptive trait and I was like, I think I have something going on here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Just good PR.
Yeah. Good. PR good story.
That's amazing. You know, it's such a fascinating creature. I think that everyone is immediately drawn to because it's so alien like, like we're talking three hearts, a doughnut shaped brain. You No eight arms, of course, blue blood. It's got, you know, a beak on top of that. What other what other alien like,
what? One of my favorite things is their eyes, I was so captivated when I first saw one that they're so they have such an expression. And you kind of feel like they're considering you just as much as you're considering it and looking at it. And I remember that first time I was like, It's thinking something. And it's like, there's something going on here.
You can see too if you visit the aquarium, and right now we have go G on exhibit, you can definitely see she'll get a live crab and we kind of talked about this with Brooke. She grabs that crab and you see her colors change and you see her eyes kind of dark back around and you see that process thinking they're so intelligent. They're really amazing. Yes. And that
the those horizontal pupils, I love the fact that they don't really have a blind spot, they can see nearly 360 degrees around their heads. I always tell kids imagine having like two panoramic cameras on the side of your head. Like you couldn't sneak up like an octopus. I think that's really cool. This Yeah, can
you can sneak up on me,
I would still I'd
do it. Quickly, Aaron would be able to be amazing. Cool, amazing. Okay, so what is your favorite octopus? Is that a hard question?
It's a hard question. Yeah.
You can choose like five if you want.
One of my favorites is kind of like an underdog or under octopus species. It's like, it's called the hairy octopus. And it doesn't have it hasn't been officially described, which means it doesn't have a scientific name. It's just called the hairy octopus. And our community has called them like the tube octopus. Because they have these floating hair like they look like a pom pom ball almost. Yeah. And they look like this pom pom like puff ball and the the size of your fingernail. And they're so cute. Yeah. And then when they move around, they actually utilize like the ocean currents to kind of like just ride an ocean current and then get to the next spot. And then you know, and they also their eyes, the chromatophores around their eyes, kind of like they do this sparkling pattern. So it's they're really like hair models. They're like fingernail sized hair models to see. And not that many people know about them. If you Google hairy octopus, you'll see a nation.
Donation reading it. Yeah, you're thinking of the first week great SEO
do we have? Do you guys know what the like hair like structures are for for catching waves? Is that help with bigger surface area?
Yeah. So there's again, like there's so much to learn about the species? What we know and like you can see in that profile, if you look it up, is from underwater photographers. I mean, they're the ones that are, you know, out there, looking at it looking at their behaviors and kind of reporting back. And yeah, I imagine it's kind of like blend in with algae. I mean, they they really do look like a floating like, plant matter. You know, they're considered the holy grail of octopus finds for underwater photographers. And yeah, it's pretty exciting.
You would never know that was an octopus from it, especially size of a fingernail. And so tiny looks
like a piece of coral, maybe there's this cool gift on rock donation to I'm watching it
grow, the debate we're having are they still able to change the texture of their skin in the same way that other
not as much not as much. There's another species called the algae octopus. And that one has pretty remarkable papilla which can change the texture of their skin, but they can actually like it, like branches out it like goes up and then branches out even more. It's like these 3d structures that really allow it to kind of blend in and it's funny because they they will have these skin spikes, but also change the color of their skin. And it really does look like like they're just a walking plant.
That's yeah.
But there's yeah, like I said, there's so many different species. As far as another favorite of mine is the blanket octopus. So the female blanket octopus. What's really interesting about her is that she has like the six foot iridescent Cape floating through the ocean. And she spends she's glamorous, yeah, but Yeah, she'll spend her whole entire life floating through the open ocean. And when it's time to kind of lay her eggs, she grows biological stocks from her body. They're like these calcium, calcified or cancerous stocks that she grows out and then she'll kind of braid her eggs into them, and then just continue floating along the open ocean until they hatch, you know? So I said there's so many different stories once you get into a min past, you know, the Giant Pacific Octopus, the Common Octopus, you're like, wait a minute. What's the next one? What's the next one? Like? You
think they're weird? Yeah, they get even weirder. How are these animals being studied? These are deep sea animals. These are animals that are not necessarily, you know, viewable to just, you know, regular scuba divers. How are these animals being discovered and studied?
I actually wrote a post on that the other day on our Instagram because, you know, they haven't been studied all that much. To me. They've been On this planet for, you know, hundreds of millions of years, and so you think we'd know a lot more than we know about them right now.
But just got here. We just got to give us some time we're
a blip on the radar. They're the OGs. But so there's a small group of, I would say, small group of scientists, you know, you have Roger Hanlon, you have you know, Jennifer Mather, you have Peter Godfrey Smith, you have, you know, all these really well known people, and they're all out there studying different different things as it relates to the octopus. And we have, you know, Chelsea Bennis, the octo girl without donation, and she's doing incredible work with the Atlantic long arm in Florida. She did a research where she swabbed octopus bellies to kind of study their microbiome.
It's interesting, so cute. Yeah. Because Belize, yeah, because,
you know, octopuses. What's really interesting about them is they don't seem to get sick, you know, so it's true, you know, they were trying to figure out like, what's going on there with their microbiome,
how they do that? On here,
I mean, for me, everything's related back to frogs. But that's such like a frog thing to to have this like very well developed microbiome on their skin that helps them have immunity to different things that don't necessarily come from like an internal immune system, but are this like colony of bacteria and fungus that live on the skin and help them out. And I was actually reading an article pretty recently about holo Bionz, which is describing an organism not as an organism, but as a community. And so for you and me, we have gut bacteria. We have all of these things that drive us and we just don't even think about it. We're like no my brains in charge your brains not in charge. I wanted a croissant this morning. Not because I wanted a croissant but because something inside of me.
Yeah, she did. She was there.
So your gut biome was telling you and I just I love the same
labeling.
There's another cephalopod. The Bobtail squid. I know this is an octopus episode, but talking about cephalopods, this bacteria that's bioluminescent Vibrio Fisher i and it actually helps you know set their circadian like cycle and cool actually, like eject it went into the seabed during the daytime so they can sleep and then it repopulates during the nighttime and then they kind of just like or like a floating light bulb. So it's like there's all these interesting things happening with with cephalopods. And we feature them all on oxygenation. I was gonna
say is there room for any other animals on oxygenation? Just octopuses?
Yeah, we can cover all of them. We cuddle. Yeah, so we have cuddle fish we have. We even separate we call them the vampires, because they're their own taxonomic group. But yeah, Nautilus. Did I miss any squid? Pretty much all of them.
It's pretty cool. I also loved that during this whole interview so far, Madeline's just been furiously looking at pictures. Yeah.
They're also visually. Yeah,
you are in a place where you can look up the pictures alongside you absolutely. Should if you're driving do not,
we have Octo pedia on our page too. So we have tons of different photos of just how they look and some of them are really, really stunning.
Yeah, occupations, such a great resource. Definitely recommend checking it out. Cool. Well, okay, let's talk about what makes an octopus and octopus what separates it from the other members of the cephalopod family.
They have really interesting anatomy. So they have I call their bag of tricks that mantle that contains like all of their bodily or wonderful tricks. It's like almost think of like a kid running away from home like throwing you know that stick with a bag. Yeah, that's like think of that that's like the octopus has mantle and it contains all of their bodily organs and that when that when thing, find them so cool. And then they have their eight arms, not tentacles with by serial suckers that run to the very end of the arm. And the way I guess that you could sex an octopus is the third arm from the right on the male doesn't actually the suckers don't run to the very end they they kind of stop and then there's this spoon like appendage called the heck the catalyst. And if you're curious, maybe if you if you're, you get to see the Giant Pacific Octopus on display, you can kind of like point and look at their eyes and then count the third arm from the right and kind of see if you can follow it down to the toe
really cool to be able to tell the difference and maybe you know if you're visiting an aquarium and it's not obvious what sex the animal is on exhibit, you can look for the Takata list or the left effect.
Is it their right or our right looking at them? No, they're right. So directionally I'm pretty sure it's their right to think right arm besides,
right now we have go G and Grundy. They're both females so they don't have back to college. So those suckers go continue all the way down the arm. But in the past with animals like Groot, we could totally see it was really cool. Yes,
their sexual dimorphism I'm in any species of octopus other than the hexaco mandalas.
Oh yeah, so the blanket octopus. What's really interesting about them is that the male is actually the size of like an acorn. And they actually, yeah,
they're talking about this fabulous female I've heard a little acorn boyfriend.
I always say it's like an interesting first and last date, he pretty much only exists. Like his whole entire life is spent kind of developing his his sperm packet to deliver it to her and then he swims off and he dies. But his whole entire life is for that this this his moment, you know, and she will collect many you know, from from multiple mail and kind of decide which one she wants to use to fertilize her eggs.
That's awful. So they can decide which one Yeah, that's amazing.
And there's also the paper Nautilus, which is another interesting octopus species.
You might hear me also ferociously typing.
It's also called the orgonite. And they're recently done a staff actually wrote a book called The lady and organized it's an incredible book about the woman who studied the first ever aquariums. But they talked about the the Argonaut paper Nautilus, and she actually secretes calcite from her arms and grows her own shell. And it's not really a shell, it's more of like a an egg casing. And it's specifically for, you know, to guard her babies while they're in the egg casing. But yeah, it's really interesting. Sometimes males will sneak up to her and just like take her for a ride. But what's really interesting about that species, too, is they'll ride atop the bells of jellyfish. And so we actually wrote a blog called like, should you pick up a jellyfish hitchhiker? And, and yeah, it's really, really interesting.
Do you all Nautilus have shells?
So the Nautilus is different than a paper Nautilus, so it's kind of confusing when it comes to nicknames. But to paper
Nautilus is an octopus. Yeah, paper Nautilus.
It's also called an organized octopus. I always said that, you know, I always get oxidation to kind of like rename, you know, some species because, like species like the coconut octopus, rarely are they ever in coconut. That's not like, you know, thing in the ocean. Sometimes they roll in there. But they're typically there with shells. And prior to being the coconut octopus when that paper was published. They were called the veined octopus. And so it's kind of fun to crowdsource names. Yeah.
What else is on your list or rename
the Caribbean Reef octopus. It's a beautiful name. But that octopus if you go to our website to it looks like Cinderella's dress. Oh, yeah. She has this. Yeah. She has this incredible webbing.
She's beautiful.
She's like blue green.
The glass slipper octopus.
Yes, genius.
She has this deep webbing, which is interesting, because they will go up to a coral and then they'll just it's called a parachute attack will they'll throw their arms up over the coral and just kind of like blow jets of water and kind of spook prey out to eat them. It's just another interesting, you know, behavior of a species that's adapted perfectly for its environment. So cool. Yeah.
Amazing. Um, have you ever met an octopus before?
Yes. I've met a couple. I've never actually met one in the wild. I've only ever interacted with them in aquariums. But yeah, for a while I was doing a series called interview with an octopus where I went to various aquariums all over the world. And what was so fascinating was that they all have very different personalities. And they have different personalities, depending on their life experiences prior to coming to the aquarium. So if they come in, and they're immediately shy, might have had a little rough of a life, you know. So it's always interesting to see. I remember I went to the one at Moody Gardens in Galveston, and her name was Lola. And it was like whatever Lola wants a little luggage. She was yeah, it was one of the most engaging interactive octopuses that I've encountered. But yeah, I've also been acquired in the Pacific. At the octopus is here,
they're forcing you to say that poking you
actually are our most viral video on YouTube is at Aquarium of the Podcific.
Oh, you don't say yes. That wasn't really special.
Yeah, we have over a million views on that. Really, really got people interested in which Octo
is gone. Well,
I want to say yeah,
Gumball
think that was my first octopus when they started working. I think it was that long ago. So yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of our relationship, the aquarium and oxygenation so we've been working together. Has it been seven years? It's been a long six or seven years. Yeah. And I think it was just serendipitous. When did you so when did you start off donation again?
I started oxidation in 2015. Yeah,
yeah. About a year later is when I started here. And then we just connected. And you actually helped us name an octopus before? Yes. Yeah. Groot. Yep. Very special guy. But Warren actually hosted a was it like a poll? Or do people comment what they wanted to vote on?
Yeah, we had, I think it was a real or something like that. And, and we had hundreds and hundreds of responses from people. Yeah. Yeah.
Great one. That was a good one. And grit was a very special octopus. He's kind of the was a star on our tic tock channel during our closure for the pandemic. And yeah, I always, you know, I love talking about our past animals, but it's always, you know, with like, a hint of sadness, because they have very short lifespan. Yeah, they do. Why do you think that is? Why do you think they have such short lifespans?
I don't know. You know, they've, like I said, they've been on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. So maybe like, that's the best for a devotee of like, the revolution, they figured it out. And apparently, that's, that's the best lifespan for them to survive. It is sad, though, because they're our most most warm water species live less than a year, they don't see their first birthday. So it's very interesting. Most people are very surprised when I tell them, you know, especially you know, when you get into aquariums, because it's really hard to figure out the age of an octopus. So when you get an octopus, their size is an indication of how old they are. And so you don't really know what you're getting. And so you might get an octopus, and it might be two years old, and then you have a year left with it. So you never you never really know. Like I said their size, and is an indication of how old they are. Yeah, so
do you know what is the longest lived species of octopus that we know of?
Yeah, I think they discovered a species called the Musso octopus, or the warty octopus. And it was a species that broods over her eggs for four years straight. Oh, wow.
That's crazy. They visited one in the ocean for a while, and they were monitoring over the course of where she hadn't eaten. She hadn't really moved, I would
make the assumption. And it's so interesting down there, where it's like, you know, life is just maybe it's more slower paced or colder. Water keeps
you keeps you got to preserve.
But yeah, I want to say that. That's probably the oldest, the oldest living
Yeah, it's fascinating. So octopuses enter no matter what a stage in their life called senescence, where they begin to decline. And that happens typically in the ocean, after breeding. Correct. But in an aquarium setting where we're not breeding animals that happens no matter what, yeah, it's kind of like a trigger that goes off. In the animal. It's just, it's time. Yeah. And a hormonal
thing. Do you? Do we know?
Yeah, they they said that there's a hormone that's released, it's essentially I've heard it described so many different ways where it's like cellular suicide, or it's like, you know, they just go into this, you know, I explain it like a dementia or Alzheimer's like state where they just forget, they think they're changing colors, but they're not fully exposed, and then they get eaten, or they start doing things like swimming up into the water column where the words they wouldn't normally do that. So you can always kind of tell they start getting kind of lesions on their body, too. So yeah, just happens. In the coil. What I've what I've noticed, too, is a big thing is that the tips of their arms, like really like almost a corkscrew. And we've learned that a lot from like our group members, some of them are hobbyists. And they say that like it's like a very triggering thing for them to see the corkscrew arms because that means like their return and Yeah,
time. Yeah, it's it's definitely a bummer that their lifespans are so short. But I do think that if they lived any longer, they probably just took over the world over the planet. Yeah. Probably. It's like, kind of down for
Bring it on. Yeah, like what is the evolutionary advantage for having your life be so short, like I truly some pressure must be put on them to only live a certain amount of time, but they're crazy animals, and that you can tell that every second of their life they are learning something new, and then applying those concepts probably better than I ever have. And they have such a limited time that it seems like they're crazy intelligent, just to kind of advance as much as they can. But you just gotta wonder what like, it doesn't mean like, Why three years down the line?
Yeah, and you can really see the that learning through observation with the coconut octopus, because it'll just walk her along the seafloor, like it's called stilt walking, where they'll just like get up and they'll start walking along the seafloor. And they'll start collecting things like you know, different shells, and then they'll figure out how to like use it to like, almost like a jigsaw puzzle to cover their body so that none of their like squishy bits are like vulnerable or anything like that. And then they kind of go into their kind of predator proof bunk. or, and just hold those those things close to them. It's pretty interesting. Yeah. And
they have, you know, only a couple of months to figure that out. Yeah. And and to live their life. Yeah, it's amazing. That's
just, like incredible to think about but also, like, they're related to other mollusks supposedly, right, like slugs and snails are supposed to be relatives of them. And those don't seem like particularly intelligent animals. And so you wonder how did this group go? Far away. And maybe snails are really smart. And maybe you don't know about it.
There's actually a really good book by Donna staff called marks of the sea, where she kind of breaks down the history of that if you're interested more into that, I suggest that book, she did a really good job, kind of breaking that down. And Peter Godfrey Smith, other minds, he breaks down. It's a very philosophical look at an exploring consciousness. And the an octopus is another interesting book.
But they're primarily pretty solitary species, right? Like our most species of octopus exist. solitarily. And so they're not even learning behavior from other octopus. It's not observed behavior from you know, conspecifics. And they're like, Okay, cool. That's how you do it. They just figure it all out on their own, which is the weirdest part to me. But Are there animals or octopus species that live in more of a community? Or is that not really an octopus thing?
Yeah, so they did interesting research into octopus and Atlantis, which is like, there you go. Like if they have footage from there, and they're just throwing shells at each other. And they're blasting each other with debris. So they're cohabitating. But they're not doing it in a way that's about Yeah, they're not happy about it. So they they live in close proximity to one another. But like I said, if you see some of those, those photos, and we have a blog on it, too. They're like blasting each other with sentiment, sentiment. They are hurling shells at each other and but yeah, for the most part, they are pretty solitary creatures. Yeah,
that's amazing. Yeah, that reminded me there is there an octopus that's able to remove it technical analysts and throw it at a female?
So there's, there's a lot of memes. Yeah. But you know, I wouldn't say that. I hate to be the person that goes well, actually, you know,
we're here for this. We're here to well, actually, yeah.
It's there's a species. And it's the Argonaut right so the the paper and also the female that has the shell there's again another go back to sexual dimorphism that species as well has a very tiny male. And so his like I said his whole entire life is dedicated to him developing that sperm packet that he finally delivers to the female. And so that arm is is like, pretty long and it has its own type of sucker or like appendage like to where it can almost crawl, or like once it detaches it it's still moving and things like that lizard tail can crawl into like the right area into the mantel so that it'll just kind of like
yeah, aliens. And so it's like, okay, I know where to go.
So glad that's not a people thing. That's the scariest thing
I've ever Yeah, it's really interesting.
So that's the same paper novelist organized. Yeah,
I can't wait to learn more about that. I don't think I've ever looked into that creature before. It's fascinating. Yeah, amazing. things.
Like I said, is another book by Donna stuff. I keep bringing her up, but she's been writing a lot of good books lately. She's she's crushing it.
Um, I'm cool. Okay, so this is probably a question you get all the time. What is the most correct term for plural? Octopus? octopi Octopodes? Octopuses just singular octopus.
Octopus is and when people ask, I'm just like, octopus is a Greek word. So it wouldn't take a Latin plural ending. And that's kind of where I end it. People tell me they just they still don't like they like I just liked the word octopi I'm like, Okay, you can like it.
Like, whatever you want. You're just wrong. Yeah, I'm
just like, you know, and so they're like, Well, you know, they're like, well, it's correct now and like Well, yeah, many things have been put in the dictionary afterwards because of widespread mis usage. But you know, what time do you want to be on?
Do you want to be right? If you want to be wrong, stay wrong. That's fine. The
dictionary will catch up. It's actually fun to say like the correct Greek pluralization which is on top it is top of
the because the post part is foot and so multiple foot and the way you would do it
I've heard it pronounced all sorts of different is Octopodes, Oct. Some people say octopods. But
octopuses so we're going with octopus, we're going with octopus. oxygenation says so.
Yeah, and you'll never see octopi in any research. So like I've never actually seen it written in any like sort of scientific paper.
No scientist would ever.
Well, there you go. The scientist at home listening to this
crosses out the word octopi There's no real scientists that ever do.
Oh, that's amazing. All right. Well, what's the most intriguing thing you've ever learned about octopuses? I know it's kind of a hard question to answer. Yeah,
one of the most intriguing things is the fact that, you know, most people know that octopuses have suckers, right? But those suckers taste and they smell and they can grip objects, right. And another. Another thing that's interesting about them is very similar to kind of like how we have fingernails and octopus on each one of their suckers has this like tightness cuticle, and when they want to improve their grip on things, or improve their taste, they can actually start like rubbing their suckers. It's like this molting process. And then all these kinds of like lily pads, or like a skin are kind of floating through. And so I always tell people that octopuses give themselves manicures, you know, they kind of that's how they kind of groom themselves is they kind of just like will rub their arms together as almost like they're concocting this evil plan. And what they're doing is that they're just improving their like grip on objects on substrates. They're improving their sense of taste and smell. So it's pretty interesting.
Yeah, when that happens, too, they get extra slimy. Because they're, you know, shedding that layer of skin.
Yeah, it's fun to see that if you're, if you're ever at the aquarium, when that happens, it's a treat, because you're like, what is it doing?
Party
Just imagine shedding all your fingernails, so you can touch things better? Like what? I'll do it? I'll try it. I'll try any kind of along the same vein of that question, what is the most interesting behavior that you know of the octopus display any species,
any species? I would say that the mimic octopus is really interesting, just because they still kind of haven't figured out how they have this repertoire of mimicking certain animals like the banded sea snake, or the flat fish. They actually will morph their bodies into what that species looks like. And even undulate like the like that fish, and just kind of like go through the water as if they're that that species and it's like, how are they like, how do they know how to do? Yeah,
I wonder if it's observing or if they're just kind of built in? Because like, we're saying they don't have a lot of time to observe and to practice their mind capabilities. Yeah.
And there's like a lot of, you know, people making the assumption that like, is it innate? Is it learned, is it a combination of both, you know, but they seem to be mimicking, like, in certain environments, like the bandit SeeSnake. When that specific, you know, specific animals are around. So they don't just do it all the time. It's like, they observe their environment and mimic whatever makes the most sense for them in that time. But there are other like, one of the coolest things that I know about cuttlefish is that they actually did research that they have embryonic learning. So prior to even hatching, they're learning about their environment, outside of their egg casings, so they actually are developing preference for food, even prior to hatching based on looking and observing its environment. And they can actually decide to hatch early if there's like this chemical signaling or like other cuddle fishes are hatching and say there's a predator in there, they can like just abort like and just go it goes like go out there
and I'm gonna be born now I'm gonna be born yet.
They had them here in the babies exhibit a requirement of Pacific. But they're so tiny and they hatch is literally miniature adults, like perfect replicas. Just tiny they really cool
Octo nation has a lot of great videos of octopus eggs or cephalopod eggs. And you can see their little eyes moving around in there. It's it's amazing to watch
little Christmas lights too, because they're actually practicing their, their chromatophores. Those will change color. They will it looks like Christmas lights, you know, when they're there. And sometimes it looks like they're moving together or they're like learning from each other. It's really fun to watch.
That's so cool. What's the gestational period of an octopus typically in egg?
I would say that it depends on the species, everything with octopus, when people say what's the like? Okay, well, it's a different species. Yeah. But
we're yours for that one. Yeah.
For that one. I mean, one other species. You're looking at a couple months. colder water like the Giant Pacific Octopus take, you know, a couple of months. So it's pretty interesting. Yeah, each one of them
fascinating. Is there an evolutionary reason to why they have exactly eight arms? You think?
I'm not too sure that's so specific.
Yeah. Eight specific arm but all of them have a
bilat they're bilaterally symmetrical, which means their mirror image on both sides too. I'm not too sure.
Is there any recent science or developments that you're really excited about when it comes to octopus
I've been watching that octopus. I just think it's hilarious.
I want to watch Rama. Yeah,
anytime you know, new research comes out, it's just it's really interesting. Cuz you always see like viral headlines of things going around. And when the The octopus is throwing things at each other started happening, I think they they do things sometimes that are like, seemingly relatable to us. And so I think initially in the study, they were like females throw things at males that harassed them. I think that was like one of the headlines that like went off. And then they're like, No, that's actually that that area is just heavily dominated by females. But males and females are throwing things at each other like the equal, right. But yeah, so. But yeah, there's just so much so much cool research happening right now. I'm trying to think of more. But that's all I can think of right now that I'm interested in.
That's so cool. So what does optimization have in the future coming up? What do you hope to do over the next couple of years with the largest octopus fan club?
Yeah, so what we really a win for us is obviously people knowing about all the different species and getting interested and kind of like finding their way and mapping their wonder to the ocean through the lens of an octopus. Because we really feel like if you can, initially have the central focus and fall in love with something in it, you can like anchor your love for the ocean through something that you're just like, oh, we have to protect it, because my favorite animal lives in it. And I feel like that's a more sustainable way to develop a relationship with the ocean, then showing massive pollution or widespread, you know, mistreatment of animals or all these different things. And so we like truly inspire wonder of the ocean by educating the world about octopuses. And we'll never kind of backhanded it, they say, Well, if you love the ocean, then you would do XYZ. And so we're staying in the educational lane. And just, like I said, talking about certain behaviors and things making them as relatable as possible, so that when people go out there in the world, and you've you've seen all of our merch, like we have so much really cool illustrative merch that they can like, show, like, I don't know, show off their merch, and then also educate about the species. And then, you know, I don't know, just go forth and, and get people interested in the ocean, I feel like we have to come up with new and unique ways to get people interested in the ocean. Obviously, social media is a really cool way to get kids interested. So it's just kind of re thinking of different campaigns, like, you know that we do interview with an octopus, but we want to kind of like bring back interview with an octopus. But with a celebrity. There's so many opportunities to just introduce and by introducing, you know, somebody to the octopus, you're introducing their audience to the octopus. Yeah. And so it's just a really cool way to think about, you know, how can you show the wonder of the octopus to somebody? Because they are fascinating, even when you're interacting with them. You're, it's so surprising how strong their suckers are. And you just, what I found is that when people meet them for the first time, it's like a life changing thing. Absolutely. Right. And so, just trying to think of more campaigns, we have some interesting work coming out with National Geographic this next year. So look out for that. And some work with Guinness Book of World Records. There's a lot of really cool documentaries coming out, that are profiling individual species. So look for their stories to be told on the big screen pretty soon.
I know you just said that you don't back handedly slip into conservation message, octopus, but for our listeners who really do want to help out octopus, what is your one overarching way that people can help animals out in the ocean?
Yeah. So I would say that, first, educate yourself just about like them and get really interested. And then kind of see what organizations have volunteer opportunities. I was just asking, you know, Madeline, what's the what is the volunteer look like here to cram in the Pacific? There's incredible program here, right? There is right? And so there's, there's all these opportunities, you have to kind of have to figure out like, you know, what is what is your interest? And it's okay to like, have the singular focus and go in and say, you know, what can I do? Is there an opportunity to intern for social media, just as it relates to an animal is there like, how can you make your mark and your own unique way? For me, I found out you know, that it was Yeah, being the PR agent for the octopus. But but for other people they might want to do I don't know, like cuddle fish nation, they might want to do you actually recommended
it because I told you the first time we met like I love octopus is of course a cuttlefish kind of have, like, you should start cuttlefish Nation. I'm like, I got enough going on. I think that could be a subsection of optimization.
Yeah. It's just finding your own unique, you know, flair when it comes to conservation and really figuring out what really inspires you because the fact of the matter is, is when you're We're more inspired, it's infectious and and people it'll rub off. I know that for me, when I, when I'm talking about the octopus to people, they always tell me that like, I just love how lit up you are. But yeah, you really, you really do. And by like you lighting up, it just makes me it's like I've never heard octopus, and like this length of time there like, I'll definitely consider it more. And I think that's at the end of the day, if we can get people to consider the ocean more, then we have a chance at saving it.
Yeah, your enthusiasm is contagious, like I am so excited about. Like, I'm gonna go look up every species of octopus. And I really feel like that's really the heart of conservation work is making people care about things and showing how much you care about something and telling them why you care about it. And just being excited, is the best way to get people to fall in love with the different animals ocean. And at the aquarium. We have different volunteer opportunities. There's you can volunteer with our education department, and you can be the one on the floor telling people about these amazing animals. We even have volunteers which are really cute to see these like really young teenagers talking very excitedly and way more knowledgeably about some of the animals and knowing things I don't even know. So there's a lot of opportunity there. And I think just make your mark in whatever way feels right for you. And that's really great advice. Yeah, we're
walking on the aquarium before we started recording. And we ran into Diana, who's a charter volunteer, and she was just gushing about the octopus. And I was like, I work here, Diana. Like, she's like, No, I'm so happy that I'm up here to get the chance today to be in front of the octopus habitat. It was really special. Yeah. You know, wasn't even just because Warren was
like, I love it.
Yeah, but just I guess, learning about all the different species and learning about there. Like for me, it was just like, wow, these these animals had been on this planet for hundreds of millions of years. Like they have survived through mass extinction events on this planet. You know, for the longest time when I was growing up, I saw there was a lot of emphasis and focus on animals that were going extinct. And I just thought like, it's really interesting to me that the octopus represents to me adaptability, resiliency, like problem solving. It's like, maybe like, why don't we focus in on an animal that has stood the test of time, and really learn from how they figured it out. And what's interesting to me is just like, how they figured it out in every single environment on planet Earth, like underwater. So like the Antarctic octopus as antifreeze proteins in its skin that allow it to survive and like sub zero temperatures, you have a hot water volcano octopus that lives next to underwater hydrothermal vents like 200 degree plumes of toxic gaseous, you know, where sea water meets magma, and they're just happy, you know, down there, you know, it's just like you So everywhere you go, it's just like, you run into an animal. That's like, just figured it out. And I think that there's something to be said about, you know, this the wonder that is the ocean. It's like, you have all these things that literally have figured it out. And to me, that's, that was just fascinating.
Yeah, that's amazing. Oh, what are we going to do together? Next? We're going to do more interviews with an octopus. Yeah, let's do it. Gotta meet Goji
have to meet Goji. Yes.
Where can we find you?
Yeah, so you can find us at if you go to octopusfanclub.com. That's our Facebook group. But we're just Octonation on every single social media platform.
Thank you, Warren so much. This was so much fun, for sure. Coming down to the aquarium to talk to us on Aquarium of the Podcific
Thank you.
Aquarium of the Podcific is brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific a 501 C three nonprofit organization. In 2023, the aquarium celebrates 25 years of connecting millions of people worldwide to the beauty and wonder of our ocean planet. Head to aquariumofpacific.org to learn more about our 25th anniversary celebration. Keep up with the Aquarium on social media at aquarium Pacific on tick tock Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
This podcast is produced by Erin Lundy, Madeline Walden and Scott Shaw. Our music is by Andrew Reitsma and our podcast art is by Brandi Kenney, special thanks to Cecile Fisher and Anitza Valles and our audio visual and education departments and to all of our amazing podcast guests for taking time out of their day to talk about the important work that they do. Podcific wouldn't be possible without the support of the aquarium donors, members, guests and supporters. Thanks for listening
