Octopus doesn't give up on motherhood
'She didn't want to leave them'

Aurora, a giant Pacific octopus watches her eggs at

the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward, Alaska.

Alaska Sealife Center

Giant Pacific Octopus
The giant Pacific octopus
is one of the largest
species of octopods.

Its reddish-brown body, called the mantle,
plus four pairs of arms, measure on average
about 16 feet long from arm tip to arm tip.

Each arm contains two alternating rows
of suckers, used to catch prey.

Males live about 4 years and females about
3.5 years. They usually die after breeding.

Source: National Parks Conservation Association

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- It was a May-December
romance that really had legs: Young Aurora, a female
giant octopus and her aging cephalopod suitor J-1
were thrown together for a blind date seven months ago by
aquarists who hoped the two would mate.

By all appearances, their fling was a success, and
Aurora began dribbling long strings of eggs down the
sides of her
tank the following month. Though her sweetheart
died of old age in September, the
pitter-patter of tiny tentacles seemed close at hand.

But those tens of thousands of eggs remained pearly
white with no signs of developing, and aquarists
at the Alaska Sealife Center concluding that the eggs
were likely sterile began draining Aurora's 3,600-gallon
(13,630-liter) tank so she could be removed from display.

Then, last week, a sharp-eyed intern at the
center in Seward noticed something peculiar
in each of the eggs: two red dots.

"I asked if that was normal,"
said 24-year-old Meghan Kokal.

It was, for baby octopus eyes.

Under a microscope, aquarists saw developing
eyes and pulsing mantles. A brief meeting
was held. It was decided that Aurora
would stay in her tank after all.

"We started to fill it up again," Hocking said.

To her credit, Aurora had never given up.
Day in and day out for months, she sent
waves of water out through her siphon to
gently cleanse her eggs, and defended them against
hungry sea cucumbers and starfish.

Aurora probably had some moments of "quiet
desperation" last Tuesday while several hundred
gallons of water were drained from her tank, said
aquarium curator Richard Hocking.

As the water went down, one of the aquarists
placed some of the eggs that had
fallen from the sides of the tank on a rock shelf.
Even then, Aurora persevered.

"She didn't want to leave them. As the water
was going down she was going down with it.
She would spray a burst of water on the
rocks on top of them," Kokal said.

Aurora and J-1 surprised everyone on the morning of
May 11 when they hit it off almost immediately after
their introduction, embracing for hours in a dark
corner of the tank, which is part of the center's
"Denizens of the Deep" exhibit.

At 5 years of age, J-1, who up until meeting Aurora
had lived a strictly bachelor life, was considered
elderly for his species, the largest octopus
in the world. He was already in a period of
decline that occurs before an octopus dies; his skin was
eroding, and his suckers were pocked with divots.

Though the two had canoodled intensely days before,
J-1 began acting cranky with Aurora and he was
removed from her tank. Female Giant Pacific
octopuses can choose to conceive in what is known
as delayed fertilization. Apparently, J-1 had
the right stuff, and the privacy was just what Aurora needed,
as she began laying eggs just a few days later.

Aurora, believed to be 3 or 4, was about the size
of a grapefruit when she was found in 2002
living inside an old tire in front of the
SeaLife Center. J-1 died on Sept. 8. He was about the size
of a quarter when found on a beach near Seldovia in 1999.

In the wild, Giant Pacific octopus females stop eating
when caring for eggs, weaken and die about the same
time as the eggs hatch. Hocking said Aurora has
lost a lot of weight and can't change colors as
rapidly as when she was younger. Her skin also is
stretched thinner and her suckers are less pliable.

"She looks like an old octopus," Hocking said.

Aurora will be allowed to stay with her eggs as
long as she continues to care for them.
When they are close to hatching, which could be
as late as spring, they will be moved to rearing tanks.
Perhaps none or as many as a few thousand could survive, Hocking said.

Kokal, who is working on a degree in environmental
science from Northern Arizona University,
likes the idea of several thousand
baby octopuses at the SeaLife Center.

"That would be very nice," she said.