Exploring the new digs!

Wilson (the human) playing with Sy (the octopus)

The old exhibit—a heavy lid prevented wandering octopuses

Strong latches keep the doors closed

A tall wall and door at the top of the exhibit

AstroTurf has been uses for the past several decades to prevent giant Pacific octopuses from getting out of their exhibits. It’s easy to use, aquarium safe and has enough air space to prevent an octopus from sticking to it. If you’ve ever tried to stick a suction cup to a window or your GPS to the windshield of your car, you know that you need a good seal. A little gap lets air underneath and the strong hold is broken. The same idea works for the octopus and AstroTurf: the grassy blades of the turf prevent the suction cups from getting a tight seal. No seal, no sticking, and no sticking means no climbing, which means no escaping octopus resulting in happy aquarists!

Covered in the green stuff

AstroTurf covering the door

So while Inky is world-famous for his escape back into the ocean, we’d rather have our octopuses "stick" closer to home. And while you can’t see the behind the scenes walls of the exhibit, know that it’s covered in green artificial grass. Perhaps the “Astro” should stand for “Anti-Sticking-To-Repel-Octopus” turf. With this octopus deterrent in place, the Aquarium ensures that our octopuses will stay put and not repeat Inky’s miraculous escape. Make sure to come visit the giant Pacific octopus soon—you know they will be there!

A new octopus has taken up residence at Central Wharf, entertaining visitors for the past few weeks. Not even a year old yet, our newest eight-armed member is quite the handful!

The trainers presented Karma with this green ball—and she immediately took to it!

At a moment’s notice, Karma will change the color and texture of her skin, move quickly around her exhibit and check out the view through her exhibit window.

Karma can change color from a deep red to a dusky tan color.

With the keen intellect that demands constant mental stimulation, the husbandry staff is always working to find new ways to enrich Karma’s experience. A good back scratch or puzzle boxes have been the favorite playtimes of past octopuses. However, our new octopus had a new toy to play with, thanks to the Marine Mammal trainers!

Karma is very active and our aquarists are always looking for ways to keep her engaged.

Our Marine Mammal team provides enrichment for our seals and sea lions every day. Training sessions and playtime with toys allows these animals to be physically active, keep their brains active by learning new behaviors or manipulating objects and to have fun. Lots of toys can be seen in our two marine mammal exhibits…and one of these toys was shared with Karma!



A favorite toy of the marine mammals is a large, green plastic ball…and now it’s the octopus’s new favorite! Our aquarist smeared the outside of the ball with fish, added some fish inside the ball and then gave it to Karma. She loved it! She used her arms to pull the fish out of the small holes, manipulated the ball around the exhibit and then just hung out with it. Karma liked it so much she didn’t want to give it back, keeping the ball well secured in her arms for the next day.



To make sure that our animals are healthy at the Aquarium, our staff makes sure that the needs of each animal is met. That often requires going above feedings and tank cleanings. For some animals, mental stimulation is a must. And sometimes that enrichment is in the form of simple, green ball.

There's just something about octopuses that really let your imagination swim wild. Whether our octopus is testing her noggin on a food puzzle or showing off her camouflaging abilities, she is an amazing creature to behold. Here's a collection of our most recent Vine videos (they're short little snippets, really) featuring the octopus.







If these don't make you want to grab a camera and meet this cephalopod, how about this small and mighty cephalopod?

There is so much beauty and wonder at the Aquarium. Come on by—with or without  your camera—and soak in the sights and sounds of our blue planet. We are open for visitors in Boston today.

The giant Pacific octopus is one animal at the New England Aquarium that most everyone wants to see. Perhaps it's their keen intelligence or their camouflaging abilities.



Or maybe you heard about a special event like when Octavia laid eggs, or when Truman squeezed himself into a box.


Or maybe you heard the Aquarium tale about the octopus that sneaked into another tank behind the scenes to snack on fish. Listen to aquariust Bill Murphy tell the tale here while interacting with George.


There's so much to learn about these fascinating cephalopods, and it's even more fun to see them in person! Stop by one of these days and get to know one of the most fascinating animals at the Aquarium.

Though summer has officially started on Central Wharf, there are still plenty of spring-like behaviors going on around the Aquarium. While we recently had a pretty impressive egg display from our goosefish, just two tanks down to her right is another interesting egg event! Octavia, our current giant Pacific octopus, has laid eggs!

Octavia looking lovely in her exhibit.

Octopus are pretty fascinating animals. They are extremely intelligent and incredibly elusive. They are also somewhat prolific. Octopuses spend the majority of their life alone, but there is one time when two octopus will come together. Octopus mating is a pretty big deal – since it only happens once in their short, 3-to-5-year lifespan!


A wild octopus guards her eggs in Puget Sound. Photo: JBruels

The average giant Pacific octopus female can lay up to 100,000 eggs in long sticky strings attached to hard substrates, with some estimates claiming only a 1 percent survival rate in the wild. It’s difficult to tell how many survive, however, because octopus populations are not well studied or documented in the wild since they are cryptic and hard to locate.


A few octopus eggs are on the glass of the Aquarium's exhibit, the rest are attached to the rock surface near the window. Each egg is about the size of a grain of rice.

Since we only have the one octopus, our eggs are not fertile – but they are plentiful! In our exhibit, there are some eggs attached to the glass and the rock-surface near the window. However, the majority of her eggs are located in the upper left corner on the wall behind Octavia’s usual hiding spot.

So, next time you’re in the Northern Waters Gallery see how many of these eggs you can spot!

-Sam

This is a guest post written by frequent Aquarium visitor Catherine Van Arnam. She offered to share her family's memories and images on the Exhibit Galleries Blog. 

Every couple of months I sit the kids down and say, "It's time. It's been too long since we visited the New England Aquarium." They don't remain sitting long and, usually on a quiet weekend morning, we pop into Boston and soon are nose to nose with the liquid-eyed harbor seals that glide peacefully in their habitat on the plaza by the Aquarium's front door.

I've learned to resist my urge to hustle us inside and proceed with our rounds inside the building. This is now where I pause and smile, and where the kids kneel and put both their hands on the glass. "He looked at me!" they yell. "They're so bendy!" Our eight-year-old daughter Anya recently said this is her favorite sight, "because their eyes are really cute! If I were a seal I would just like to go up to people and look at them with my cute seal eyes." When pleading for an extra cookie or bedtime story, she now barks, "SEAL EYES," to her brother, Erik, seven. Their prompt imitation of cute seal eyes has compelled quite a few cookies in their direction.


We're hardly ever a few steps inside the Aquarium before something fascinating is witnessed in the penguin exhibit. Our most recent trip had us flabbergasted with the care and work involved in feeding each penguin by hand the correct amount and in good time, before getting the rock-scrubbing underway. We like to pick a penguin to watch for a few minutes, and already feel we've an excellent grasp of penguin psychology. They don't seem so different from us.

Up next is Daddy's favorite, those charming curmudgeons, the groupers. Peacefully dour, they enjoy the company of lobsters, just like Dad. Then Erik pulls us along to find one of the very-bright-green moray eels in the Giant Ocean Tank. Shyly concealed along the bottom, they emerge when ready and rivet us with their beady, penetrating gaze and bounty of small, knifelike teeth. “Were I an eel I would like to eat little fish, and I would not like to look at the sharks,” notes Erik.


Now it's my turn to lead the way and we soon arrive at my very favorite, the giant Pacific octopus tank. It is a hard truth that there's been a succession of these beautiful creatures here through the years, as they only live for about two years. Of late I've savored my nose-against-the-glass time with Octavia. She is not mysterious to herself, and just goes about her day as I stare, captivated.



There may be thousands sea creatures at New England Aquarium, but we can't seem to exit the place without running into many of the human species that keep the place going. Besides the many organized demonstrations available, we usually buttonhole several cheery staffers during our visit and the kids share observations and questions. The friendliness of the staffers extends to those at The Café--with my favorite view of Boston Harbor--and the speedy cashiers selling admission tickets to people from all over the world.

As we drive home the whole family is tired but so satisfied, and we all dream of the gurgling wonders of the deep until we can see them again.

Anya drew these pictures after our adventure. Clockwise from top: Octavia the octopus, a shark feeding, Myrtle the green sea turtle, a unicornfish, a moon jelly.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts about the Aquarium Catherine! Visitors who would like to share their Aquarium memories can use our Tumblr submit form.

So, stop by and say hi next time you’re on the third level! But, remember that octopuses have the ability to change both their color and texture to camouflage in their environment which makes her really good at hiding, so you’ll have to look carefully to see her!

-Sam

[Read more about Aquarium octopuses in this post describing how a giant Pacific octopus named Truman managed to squeeze into a 15-inch-by-15-inch box. You can also check out this YouTube video featuring Senior Aquarist Bill Murphy interacting with an octopus named George.]

Visitors to the Aquarium are being treated to a very special, and beautiful, temporary addition to the goosefish exhibit on the third floor. The female goosefish laid an egg veil this week! Take a look...




The egg veil moves very slowly with the currents in the tank.


The goose fish is in the lower left corner of the tank, to the left of the orange sea star.

Egg veils are usually about a foot wide and can reach 60 feet long, containing about a million eggs. "It feels almost like a sea jelly," says Bill Murphy, aquarist in the Northern Waters Gallery. "The veil is pretty strong."


Seen from above, you can almost make out the tiny eggs that comprise the sheet.


A tip of the veil


Murphy could tell that the goosefish was getting ready to lay the eggs because she was so much larger than usual.

Murphy says this particular fish has laid an egg veil around the same time of year for the past couple years. Another neat fact about goosefish: They have a modified dorsal fin that they dangle to attract prey, almost like their own fishing lure. Come visit this fascinating fish at the New England Aquarium! The egg veil will remain in the exhibit for the next couple days.

While you're here, don't miss the giant Pacific octopus just a couple tanks down from the goosefish in the Northern Waters Gallery. Murphy posted about the unusual and amazing talents of these intelligent animals in a guest post on the Aquarium's Divers Blog. Click through to see pictures of the octopus squeezing into a clear box!

As a certified dry suit diver, Murphy also recently taught teens in the Aquarium's SEA TURTLE program that not all scuba diving is warm water diving!