One family just wanted to make their child’s dream come true. However, they might have gotten a bit more than they bargained for after the one octopus they bought for their son multiplied into 51 octopuses.
Cal Clifford, a 9-year-old from Edmond, Oklahoma, in the United States, had asked for a pet octopus at every birthday and Christmas for the last few years. Eventually, after getting in touch with a local aquarium store, the boy’s parents agreed they could set up a tank and began documenting their octopus-owning journey on TikTok.
“We really like to encourage our children’s interests,” Cal’s father Cameron Clifford told AP News. “It’s magical to see a kid embrace their dreams and bring them to fruition. Cal has been infatuated with the natural world and with marine biology since he was very little.”
Terrance the California two-spot octopus (Octopus bimaculoides), often referred to as a bimac from the scientific name, soon joined the family, and all seemed to be well – that is, until Terrance began laying eggs. The family thought these eggs would be unfertilized, but several weeks later the tank was filled with many tiny cephalopod hatchlings.
Even in perfect conditions, such as in an aquarium, only a small handful of these hatchlings would be expected to make it to adulthood. Currently, 23 of the 50 babies are still alive, writes the Washington Post.
How Terrance came to be able to produce fertilized eggs is less of a mystery, as she was caught by a diver off the coast of California where this is a legal practice outside of protected marine areas. It is thought that Terrance bred before she was caught and then stored her eggs until she felt safe enough to lay them (the mystery pregnancy of Charlotte the stingray, however, continues).
“It’s expensive, wet chaos,” said Cameron Clifford, who the New York Times reports has spent thousands of dollars on tanks and various octopus paraphernalia to keep the young alive and Terrance happy. Unfortunately, octopus mothers often die soon after hatching – and while Terrance is still alive four months after her hatchlings arrived, bimac octopuses typically only live between 1-2 years.
“I don’t know that we’ve been fully prepared for any of these challenges, but the hope is to re-home as many as we can,” Clifford said. “And those that we can’t, we will figure out a way to keep them alive and be responsible. It’s not a real concrete plan, but we’re doing pretty good so far.”
Source Link: How Many Octopuses Are Too Many? Family Pet Lays 50 Surprise Eggs