“Supple as leather, tough as steel, cold as night!” was how Victor Hugo described the writhing tentacles of a giant octopus in his 1866 novel, Les Travailleurs de la Mer. Hugo wrote of an unimaginable account of a man embroiled in a life or death struggle with a malevolent blood-thirsty cephalopod.  Indeed, what could be more horrible than to find oneself suddenly trapped in a nightmarish death struggle with a slippery, eight-armed sea monster? Octopus Dolfleini In modern times, Hollywood filmmakers have propagated the octopus’s celebrity by portraying them in B movies as villainous creatures that either terrorize seaside communities, prey on unsuspecting treasure divers, or drag ill-fated ships to the bottom of the sea. Fortunately for mankind, these dramatic myths are based more upon fiction, than fact. Of the more than 289 species of octopus in the world there is only one that can truly be called a giant – the giant Pacific octopus (octopus dolfleini), the largest octopus in the world. These behemoth cephalopods inhabit the cold coastal waters of the North Pacific Ocean from Japan to California from the shoreline to depths of 183 meters (600 feet). Though population estimates don’t exist, the species is not deemed to be an endangered species. Supremely intelligent, these brainy octopus are known to solve mazes very quickly and unscrew jar lids to retrieve food inside the jar. They are also one of the only marine invertebrates that actually employ strategy, rather than instinct, to capture their prey.

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