I’m an Octopus


I’m one of the most curious creatures of the sea.



My favorite song is from the legendary British band, the Beatles.

It features me, an octopus and my garden under the sea.

It’s titled

Octopus’s garden



It’s a whimsical song in traditional Beatles fashion.



Ringo wrote the song as a member of the Beatles based on his experiences on a vacation trip while snorkeling underwater and seeing an octopus’s garden and feeling in awe and inspired.



An octopus is a mysterious creature of the sea and is unique in its appearance and how it lives in the water.



An octopus has eight long arms, a round head, bulging eyes, 3 hearts and lives on the bottom of the ocean. Octopuses can change their colors to blend in with their surroundings as a form of camouflage.



There is a real life underwater Octopus’s garden 80 miles out from the coast of central California where as many as 20,000 pearl octopuses come to nest two miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean on rocks lining the ocean bottom.



Scientists are fascinated by this large gathering of octopuses attributing it to the warmer waters which has been favorable to the incubation process of the female octopuses.



Baby octopuses form as larva hatching from eggs and are no larger than the size of a pea living in shallow coastal waters. When they hatch they have eight tiny little arms ready to take in the ocean.



They grow through juvenile to adulthood in two years



A mother octopus will stay with her eggs in an underwater den protecting them until they hatch which takes about 10 months as she slowly starves to death. Her sole purpose is to protect her eggs sacrificing her life for the benefit of her young so they will hatch and eventually go out to the shallow waters to start their lives never meeting their mother.



Once baby octopuses hatch, their mother is sadly gone dying from starvation and they’re then on their own depending solely on their natural instincts.



Baby octopuses are tiny hungry sea hunters feeding on shrimp, crabs, clams and small fish for their survival.



Octopus live in all oceans of the world and many reside on the ocean bottom while young babies live on the surface.



They occupy both warm and cold waters depending on their species.



There are more than 300 species of octopus worldwide.



The smallest octopus of the sea is the star sucker pygmy octopus which is less than 1 inch in length and weighs less than 1 gram living in the western Pacific Ocean at a depth of 10 to 100 feet.



The largest octopus occupying that same sea is the giant pacific octopus which at its largest is 20 feet long weighing 110 pounds. It tends to live 6,000 feet below the surface of the water.



Octopuses live solitary lives on the bottom of the ocean in dens built from rocks and usually only get together to mate.



There are some species of octopus that are more sociable and do gather in large groups like at the octopus garden in California.



Sounds like a bar hangout but it’s an undersea garden for octopus to gather together.



Octopuses are very intelligent, problem solvers, escape artists and incredibly can change color at will and regenerate their arms if they encounter an attack.



The one thing that has puzzled scientists is the cannibalistic nature of octopuses and their behavior of causing self harm especially among mother octopuses when they’re near death as their babies are about to hatch.



It’s truly sad how the mother dies shortly after the birth of her babies.



An octopus life span is only 6 months to 3 years mainly because the female dies shortly after her eggs hatch and the male dies either due to being cannibalized by the female or dying shortly after his mate.



Octopus have 4 stages of development; egg, larva, juvenile, adult.



There are species of small octopus that can serve as pets in an adequate sized aquarium but they must live alone due to their nature and they feed on fish and crustaceans.



The Monterey Bay aquarium in Monterey, California serves home to the giant pacific octopus where you can see this amazing creature up close.



The ocean is the home to the octopus but they can visit land for short stints of no more than a half hour before they head back to the ocean.



I am born from an egg.



My mother stays with me until I hatch.



I never meet my mother and must navigate life on my own.



I’m an octopus.