Maritime Awards Society of Canada

Beautiful, bashful and brainy, the giant Pacific octopus leads a life of mystery. With a personality that’s as complex as its appearance, this animal is a master of disguise that can open jars, mimic other octopuses, and finds its way through mazes in laboratory experiments.

Tim Carpenter, Curator of Fish and Invertebrates at the Seattle Aquarium, will give a free public lecture entitled ‘Super Suckers: Giant Octopus & other Cephalopods’.  Join us on the evening of Monday, March 8 on Lopez at the Public Library or Tuesday, March 9 on Orcas Island at Camp Orkila both lecture will start at 7:00 pm.

Like squid, octopuses are cephalopods, meaning ‘head-foot’, so named because the feet (arms) are attached to the head. Octopuses have a highly developed brain and acute vision.The North Pacific giant octopus, or the Giant Pacific octopus, is distinguished from other species by its sheer size: adults can weigh over 33 lbs, with an arm span of up to 14 ft.

Octopus live to be about four years old; both males and females die soon after breeding.

To make up for its relatively short life span, the octopus is extremely prolific: females lay up to 100,000 eggs and brood them intensively for months, all the while not eating a single bite of food. Hatchling octopus are about the size of a grain of rice, and only a few survive to adulthood.

This will be the last lecture of the 2009/10 Marine Science Lecture Series, which was created to inspire the general public and to highlight the amazing fish and wildlife of our region. Please park in the upper parking lot at Camp Orkila. Shuttle service from the parking lot to the talk is available before and after the lecture.

The 2009/10 Marine Science Lecture Series is presented by program partners The SeaDoc Society and YMCA Camp Orkila. It is made possible through generous sponsorship by Tom Averna (Deer Harbor Charters), and The Gould Family Foundation and co-sponsorship by Barbara Brown, Eclipse Charters, The Kingfish Inn, Shearwater Sea Kayak Tours, West Sound Marina and Jim and Kathy Youngren.