Long arms of Newport octopus stretch around the world via 'OctoCam'

Published: Tuesday, June 08, 2010, 6:46 PM Updated: Wednesday, June 09, 2010, 10:27 AM

Bill HanshumakerDeriq

The octopus is currently on display all over the world via the OctoCam at the Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport.

NEWPORT – At first, the camera shows only a tank inhabited by sea stars and anemones. Then a shadow falls across the water. There's a flash of pink, then a slithering arm curling and uncurling over the rocks.

Soon, there are more arms and then the bulbous red body of the octopus floating dance-like across the screen.

For 45 years, the guest octopus in the lobby of the OSU Mark O. Hatfield Marine Science Center has been a star attraction, luring people to visit again and again.

Now, people from all over the globe can share in the fascination. This week, the marine education and research center unveiled the OctoCam, two webcams streaming live video from inside and out of the octopus tank.

"It's mesmerizing," said Bill Hanshumaker, public marine education specialist at Hatfield. "It's something you don't see on a regular basis. It's unique."

The center has kept an octopus on display since opening in 1965. They are typically brought in by fishermen who find them clinging to their gear. The center keeps them around for a while, then releases them back into the wild. The current resident is Deriq, named by a visitor in a public naming contest. The original Deriq, was found in some derelict fishing gear – hence the name. But octopuses are like cats, said Hanshumaker.

"Some love people and some are aloof." Alas, the first Deriq was no people octopus, and a second critter was brought to take his place – and name.

"This one was brought in by a crab fisherman," Hanshumaker said. "He pulled up one pot and it was full of empty crab shells. He pulled up a second, more empty crab shells. He pulled up a third and there was the octopus with empty crab shells and a crab. He was still eating."

And eating is something octopuses do very well, and very slowly, making the 1 p.m. daily public feeding quite the show. About 100 visitors show up at the center daily during the summer months just to watch.

"When we put the crab in, we don't hand him the crab," said Hanshumaker. "We let them find it. When they discover the crab, they touch it with a single arm. They undergo a rapid color change from bright red to white. They create a net with their arms, envelope the crab and pull it up and bite it."

They have to be quick with the bite or the crab could pinch the octopus and hurt it, he said. The bite paralyzes the crab with a neurotoxin, then enzymes begin breaking down the meat.

"It turns the inside of the prey animal into a milkshake," Hanshumaker said. "While it's processing the meat with toxin, it's just holding on to it. Once its consistency is shake-like, it licks it clean."

As entertaining as the show may be, the OctoCam has an even more important role: education. People who've never seen the ocean can now watch one of its most unusual creatures up close and live, said Nancee Hunter, director of education with Oregon Sea Grant, which oversees the visitor's center.

Recently, a school teacher in Iowa used the webcam to do a live class for second graders.

"The students were really excited. They'd never seen anything like it," Hunter said. The teacher, Joan McKim, was pretty awed, too.

In a note to the center, she wrote, "This is one of the most authentic education experiences of my 33 years of teaching."

Of course, Deriq doesn't always cooperate. Octopuses can be shy and tend to want to hide in nooks and crannies. That's where the second camera from the outside helps. They are also smart and curious. Which might explain why on Tuesday morning, the view suddenly took a mysterious turn, switching from live color to eerie black and white. Seems Deriq had enveloped the camera with his arm, darkening the lens save for a close up of one pearly white sucker stuck dead in the center of the screen.

And then, pop, he released it and, with all eight arms undulating across the water, floated away.

-- Lori Tobias