Featured Image Credit: Paul Joseph Brown, Seattle PI
By Emily Persico
Each and every year, Seattle Aquarium kicks off its Valentine’s Day celebration with a Giant Octopus Blind Date. A male and a female are united in a tank to make love under dimmed lights, decorative hearts and roses, and romantic music. This year, though, things went awry when female octopus Raspberry began laying eggs before the romantic meeting.
Upon finding out that the sex show was indeed cancelled, disappointment fluttered in through all avenues. Paying guests galore had to skip this arousing display for more standard Valentine’s dates, like dinner and movies. Pancake, the male octopus who was gallantly awaiting his female counterpart, must put off his sexy time indefinitely.
Raspberry, on the other hand, got to swim free that day. Seattle Aquarium released the egg-laying, scandalous female octopus into Elliott Bay once and for all. In a few weeks, Pancake too will be released in the ocean to join his her (or likely a virgin female – octopi mate just once in their lifetime before dying).
This is the second year in a row that the Octopus Blind Date has been cancelled, but last year the male was to blame. Kong, the 70-pound male and lover-to-be, weighed twice that of his female counterparts and posed a cannibalistic threat to the whole shebang.
Love hurts. Unfortunately for octopi, love is merely a precursor to death, whether it be in a tank or in the ocean.
In lighter news, the Seattle Aquarium is celebrating Octopus Week! You should check it out.