Have you ever seen an octopus? Do you know what they eat or how they survive? There are over one hundred types of octopuses in the world. Giant Pacific Octopuses are the largest of all octopuses. Octopuses are rarely over one hundred pounds. The record size measured was thirty feet across and weighed more then six hundred pounds. Females are larger than males. Males live longer than females. Males live four years; females only three and a half years. The giant octopus is at home in the North Pacific Ocean from Southern California to Alaska, west to the Aleutian Islands and Japan.

Octopuses have large reddish-brown globe-shaped heads called a mantle and four pairs of webbed arms. The Pacific Octopus hunts at night when it is dark. Favorite things to eat are crabs, shrimp, clams, lobster, fish, and scallops. Octopuses are intelligent. They are able to open jar lids to get food inside of a jar. They have many ways to escape an enemy. An octopus can change colors, texture or shape to help them escape predators. They use their arms to crawl along the ocean floor. They are able to push water out of their body. The force of the water pushes their body backwards helping them flee to safety. When soaring though the water the giant octopus does not curl up like other octopuses. It flows freely though the water. It looks like a flower. To help them escape an enemy, octopuses are also able to squirt black ink into the water. The cloud of ink hides the octopus giving it time to swim away.

Octopuses build their dens in cracks, under rocks or into man made objects like flower pots to protect themselves from predators. They love to live in parts of pottery; they will fight with other octopuses over a broken piece of pottery. Giant octopuses are shy, they like to live far away from other octopuses. They are proud home owners. They are protective of their dens and try to keep others away. They keep their homes comfortable and clean. They make their den this way by smoothing the sand. They also throw away debris. Octopuses dens are used for safety and for females to give birth.

Female octopuses are good mothers. A female will lay twenty thousand to one hundred thousand eggs. These eggs are on several strings. The mother octopus hangs the strings in her den. She cleans and protects her eggs, never taking her eyes off them. She does not even look for food for herself. As a result she grows weak. The eggs hatch months later, and then the female dies. Hatchlings are only as big as a grain of rice. Babies swim to the surface. They drift and grow for four to twelve weeks. Then the young octopuses dive to the bottom of the ocean again.