Photo credit: Karin Lehnardt, factretriever.org
The Giant Pacific Octopus
The Giant Pacific Octopus is the largest octopus species in the world, with arm spans that can reach over 15 feet. Found in the cold coastal waters of Alaska, these intelligent animals are known for their problem-solving skills, camouflage abilities, and curious personalities. Despite their size, they are masters of stealth, using color and texture changes to blend into their environment.
Giant Pacific Octopuses play an important role in Alaska’s marine ecosystem as both predator and prey, helping maintain balance in the ocean food web.
DID YOU KNOW…
They have three hearts — two pump blood to the gills, and one pumps blood to the rest of the body.
Giant Pacific Octopuses are incredibly smart and can solve puzzles, open jars, and even recognize individual humans.
They have no bones, allowing them to squeeze through openings as small as their beak.
Giant Pacific Octopuses use jet propulsion to move quickly, shooting water from their siphon.
SCIENTIFIC AND COMMON NAMES
Enteroctopus dofleini; Amikuq in Sugt'stun.
GENERAL DESCRIPTION
Full-grown, a Giant Pacific Octopus can weigh more than 50 pounds, but the heaviest on record weighed 200 pounds and measured nearly 20 feet across. While usually reddish-pink with a veinlike pattern up close and white on the underside of its tentacles, Giant Pacific Octopus can change their skin color and texture to mimic their surroundings. They’re able to imitate rocks, reefs, sand, coral, and even poisonous fish to hide from predators. Their eight arms are covered with around 2,240 suction cups, giving them an incredible grip and the ability to taste and smell.
RANGE AND HABITAT
The Giant Pacific Octopus can be found all across the Pacific, from Korea and Japan to the coastlines of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. They live in all cold, coastal waters of Alaska, from the Bering Sea and Aleutian Islands to the Gulf of Alaska and Southeast Alaska. They make their homes in rocky crevices and tidepools, from the shallow intertidal zone to depths up to 4,900 feet.
They are solitary animals and spend most of their life alone.
LIFE HISTORY AND diet
The Giant Pacific Octopus lives three to five years and reaches sexual maturity at two years of age. They typically seek a mate towards the end of their life and die shortly after reproducing.
Giant Pacific Octopuses reproduce only once in their lifetime. During mating, the male uses a specialized arm called a hectocotylus to transfer sperm packets to the female. Afterward, the female lays tens of thousands of tiny eggs inside a protected den on the seafloor. She spends the next months guarding and cleaning the eggs, circulating water over them to provide oxygen and protect them from predators. During this time, she rarely leaves the den and typically does not eat.
The tiny larvae are just over a quarter-inch long and way less than one thousandth of an ounce. They drift to surface waters, eating plankton for up to five months before settling back to the seafloor, weighing five grams. It takes another year for a young octopus to grow to two pounds; by two years, they may weigh up to 20 pounds.
The Giant Pacific Octopus is a skilled predator, and their diet includes crabs, clams, shrimp, scallops, snails, and small fish. Using their powerful arms and suction cups, they can pry open shells and capture prey hiding among rocks and kelp. At the center of their arms is a hard, beak-like mouth that allows them to crack shells and tear apart food. They will sometimes even prey on sharks or other octopuses if the opportunity arises.
Photo Courtesy of: Bruce Kerwin / seadocsociety.org
THREATS AND CONCERNS
Giant Pacific Octopuses are not currently under the protection of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora; however, the Giant Pacific Octopus is facing mounting threats due to climate change, pollution, and fishing. Their popularity as a commercial product has increased, with a 2.5 million ton harvest going to the food market and 35,000 pounds caught annually as bycatch. They also have a short life span and are very reclusive, making research difficult.
CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE
Like much of the marine life of Alaska, indigenous connections with octopuses throughout coastal Alaska are deeply rooted in history. They have long been a food source and trade item for subsistence fishers, and are often featured in coastal Alaska Native art, particularly in the homelands of the Tlingit people, who call the octopus “náakw”, or devilfish.
