Cephalopods · Octopoda · Octopodidae

Giant Pacific Octopus

Enteroctopus dofleini

Least Concern

The species is abundant and widely distributed; it faces no significant short-term risk. See full glossary

For all that it is the largest octopus in the world, its life is surprisingly short: barely three to five years, a span governed by the optic gland, an endocrine organ that triggers senescence after breeding.

Weight

10 kg – 50 kg

Size

up to 5 m

Lifespan

4 years

Diet

Carnivore

Feeds mainly on other animals.

Activity

Nocturnal

Active mainly at night.

Social structure

Solitary

Lives and hunts alone, joining others only to breed.

Sighting difficulty

Easy

OceanCarnivore Nocturnal Solitary Ocean Mollusc

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Fun facts

The female stops feeding for the months she spends tending her eggs, and starves to death shortly after they hatch.
It eats fish, crustaceans, molluscs, echinoderms and other octopuses.
It lives in temperate coastal waters all around the rim of the North Pacific.
anatomíaIt can change the colour and texture of its skin in a fraction of a second thanks to specialised cells called chromatophores.

Life cycle & biology

Skeleton type: Invertebrate - no skeleton (soft-bodied cephalopod)
Habitat & environment: Temperate coastal waters around the whole rim of the North Pacific, from Baja California to Alaska, Japan and Korea
Birth weight: ~6 mm long at hatching, the size of a grain of rice
Size at birth: ~6 mm long at hatching
Sexual maturity: 2-5 years
Gestation / incubation: 5-7 months of incubation, guarded throughout by the female, who does not feed
Litter / clutch size: 20,000 to 100,000 eggs per clutch (up to 400,000 according to some sources)
Lifespan in captivity: 3-5 years, much as in the wild

Sources consulted: TheSea.org; ScienceDirect; National Geographic; SeaDoc Society; Facts and Details; ADFG Alaska; California Sea Grant; Animal Diversity Web; UW Interactive Oceans