Alaska SeaLife centre has announced the hatching of a giant Pacific octopus’s eggs and the video evidence is very relaxing.
The mother is Gilligan, the eldest female giant Pacific octopus at the ASLC, whose hundreds of eggs will hatch over the coming weeks after nearly a year of incubating.
Giant Pacific Octopus BabiesOCTO EGGS ARE HATCHING! After almost a year of incubating, giant Pacific octopus babies are beginning to hatch. You can see Gilligan and her hatchlings in ASLC’s “Octopus Grotto” exhibit. So far less than 100 have hatched, but over the next several weeks more are expected to emerge. Look carefully for these tiny cephalopods as they are hard to spot – they are approximately the size of a pea.Posted by Alaska SeaLife Center on Thursday, April 26, 2018
Gilligan began laying her eggs in May 2017, and she encourages them to hatch by blowing water on to the egg bundles.
The eggs are expected to all have hatched by the end of May. The babies are born with eight arms, sucker discs and well-developed eyes.
As they surface the staff will transport them to a rearing tank where they float and eat zooplankton.
Hatching and successfully rearing these octopuses is extremely rare and, both in an aquarium and in the wild, the odds of survival are low.
