Mote Marine Aquarium in Sarasota is now home to several baby octopuses.
The last week of December, more than 20 Caribbean pygmy octopuses were born.
Biologists were not expecting them and said the babies are a total surprise.
“I got lucky enough to have my second generation of captive-raised octopus babies here,” Senior Aquarium Biologist Brian Siegel said.
The eight-tentacled bundles of joy are the children of Mote’s famous now-adult Caribbean pygmy octopuses, who made national news last year.
The new babies came from parents hatched in March 2014, which in turn hatched from wild octopus eggs.
A picture showing one of those babies next to a pencil went viral, gaining thousands of fans on social media and appearing in Scientific American online.
The photo was recently dubbed one of the "most amazing science and technology images of the year" by Popular Science.
The new babies are now hiding behind the scenes, currently too delicate and secretive to be on exhibit.
Caribbean pygmy octopuses (Octopus mercatoris) are nocturnal, reclusive and great at blending into the reefs and rocky outcroppings they inhabit in the wild.
“The minute you turn the light on, they’re gone,” said Siegel. “They don’t want to be viewed all the time, so displaying them can be a challenge for a biologist.”
Siegel said the new babies came about through luck and skill.
“It was luck that I had the adults in a group of five males and two females so they could breed," he said. “We can’t recognize the females until they lay eggs. It’s also important that we had the conditions just right for these animals to thrive. We’ve really been working at this.”
Siegel said not a lot is known about the Caribbean pygmy octopus. He hopes by breeding them and studying them, he’ll learn more and share his knowledge.
“Most aquariums that have octopuses on display generally get them from the wild,” said Siegel. “They are an adult and you don’t know how old they are. When they are born in an aquarium, you have them from day one. Now we will know their full life cycle in an aquarium setting.”
While the babies remain behind closed doors, the older octopuses, now the size of silver dollars, are on display. However, it was a challenge to set them up.
“They are in glass jars that are half painted black so they have the feeling of safety,” said Siegel. “One side is clear so people can see.”
So far, visitors are enjoying getting to see the octopuses up close.
“It’s cool to see them in a way where you can check them out and see what they’re doing,” said Justin Elden, from Illinois. “It’s really awesome.”
Siegel is also working behind-the-scenes with a small number of reclusive Caribbean reef octopuses, along with showier cephalopods that are relatives of octopuses, such as dwarf cuttlefish (Sepia bandensis) from the Pacific Ocean.
He has shared cuttlefish offspring with more than 30 zoos, aquariums and research facilities in the U.S. to support cephalopod education and science while lessening the need to collect animals from the wild.
Siegel hopes to develop rearing techniques for similar programs with the harder-to-raise octopuses.
Even with the hardiest octopus species, it is extremely uncommon to raise a second-generation in human care.