PORT ANGELES — The Feiro Marine Life Center wants you to name its new octopus by choosing from one of four names in the current Peninsula Poll.
The poll on the right side of the home page runs until approximately 6 p.m. Saturday, and the results will be announced Sunday online and in Monday morning’s print edition. Poll watchers can monitor the results during the entire poll-taking time by voting or clicking on the “vote” button.
The center’s 18-month-old giant Pacific octopus was caught at Freshwater Bay by Feiro volunteer Wayne Roberts and has been settling into the small octopus tank at the center on City Pier since Feb. 17, said Melissa Williams, executive director of the marine education center.
The four names suggested by marine center staff and volunteers for her are:
■ Cleopatra, because she is queenly.
■ Ursula, after the octopus-woman in the Disney classic “The Little Mermaid.”
■ Orleans, because she was caught on Fat Tuesday.
■ Waynonna, for the volunteer who caught her.
Obecka, Feiro’s adult octopus, and the new young octopus can be seen at the center from noon to 4 p.m. daily.
Admission is free until Memorial Day, though donations are accepted.
After Memorial Day, admission is $4 for adults, $2 for children age 3-17, and children age 2 and younger are admitted free.
Feiro is located on City Pier at 315 N. Lincoln St., near the intersection of Lincoln Street and Railroad Avenue.
Giant Pacific octopuses live only three to five years, and Feiro releases them to allow them to breed before they die, so the center has had several octopuses.
Traditionally, the center’s octopuses have been given names starting with the letter O, but the staff and volunteers are ready to break with the tradition.
In the past, the center’s octopuses have been named by staff or volunteers, and naming rights have been sold at the Fish on the Fence auction.
This is the first time the public will have the opportunity to vote on a name, Williams said.
Each octopus has shown a very different personality, she said.
Octopuses can change their color and patterning quickly to camouflage themselves in almost any environment or simply according to their mood.
Previous octopuses that have lived in the center’s two octopus tanks have spent most of their time in their neutral, natural reddish-brown color, but the new softball-sized young female has her own style, Williams said.
“She prefers to stay camouflaged,” Williams said, but added that she has also seen the young creature turn completely white.
The female also eschews the safety of a small den provided, which Obeka rarely left. The young octopus remains in the open.
Obeka is nearing breeding condition and will be released within about six weeks.
“She’s right at that size. It could be any time now,” Williams said.
Obeka was named for Becky Jewell, a longtime Feiro volunteer who died in 2013.
The giant Pacific octopus is the largest species of octopus on Earth, with most adults weighing in between 22 and 110 pounds with a 14- to 16-foot arm span, but they can grow much larger.
A newly hatched octopus is the size of a grain of rice. They grow rapidly on a diet of zooplankton, then later feed on shrimp, clams, lobster, crab, fish and smaller octopuses.
When octopuses breed, the male swims away to die, and the female retreats to a rocky den to lay and care for her brood of thousands of eggs.
Octopuses have been called “the best mothers in the world” because they stay in the den, jetting water gently among the eggs to keep the water fresh and aerated, and guard the eggs jealously against predation.
They do not leave the den to hunt or eat, and die when their brood hatches.
Feiro holds a special permit to capture and display octopuses in the education and research facility, which requires the center to return the creature to the place where it was caught so it can breed.
It is illegal to keep a giant Pacific octopus without a permit.
Obeka and her predecessor, Opal, were also caught at Freshwater Bay.
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Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arice@peninsuladailynews.com.
