An eeny weeny teeny little octopus at Victoria’s Ogden Point
Loyal readers of this blog: please forgive my recent fixation with aquatic critters. I can’t resist posting one more entry about octopuses — slimy, slinky, eight-armed wonders that they are.
Susan Rybar of Victoria was waiting on shore for some friends to complete a dive off the city’s Ogden Point when one of them surfaced with an old medicine bottle and placed it at her feet. Out of the bottle squirmed a tiny octopus! It stuck around long enough for Susan to snap this photograph before it wriggled back into the water.
James Cosgrove, British Columbia’s resident cephalopod expert, says Susan’s photo shows either a juvenile giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini), or a ruby octopus (Octopus rubescens), also known as the Pacific red octopus. It is common to find the young of either species taking shelter in cans and bottles in shallow water.
Watch for Cosgrove’s new book Super Suckers: The Giant Pacific Octopus and Other Cephalopods of the Pacific Northwest (Harbour Publishing) this March. The text will include fascinating factoids, new research on octopus behaviour, anecdotes and legends, as well as underwater photographs taken by regular British Columbia Magazine contributor Neil McDaniel.
July 14th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
I was swimming down on Vince Beach in Florida and stuck a small three-inch shell in my bikini bottoms which we were collecting along the shallow parts of the water. After swimming around for a little while I was surprised with a sting/bite where I had tucked the shell. When I removed the shell from my bikini bottom I closely observed it and found a jelly type substance in it. I laid it on the beach after I poked it and out crawled what looked like a tiny octopus. The sting/bite really, really hurt! This is exactly what the little creature looked like, color and all! It was about 1.5 inches, 2.5 when it swam away! I thought “wow I can’t believe I just got stung/bit by an octopus!” It stung really good for a little while and then the sting finally went away. It’s been just over a week since I got stung and I still have a tiny little mark. I was researching “octopus” to see what kind it was and ran across your posting.