Everyone knows people have a cat or a dog at home as a pet. Pets are believed to be a significant stress relief for their owners but a family in Oklahoma is getting stressed out by their pet as keeping it has led them to face circumstances they were not ready for. Well, it does not come as a surprise as the pet in question is a female octopus that has the family struggling to come to grips with a new reality after the marine animal gave birth to an army of hatchlings.
Cameron Clifford thought it was a good idea to gift their son an adult two-spot female Octopus in October last year. The octopus was delivered in a transparent plastic bag filled with water and packed with styrofoam inside a brown cardboard box. The family encountered difficulties in arranging a suitable habitat for Terrance but found joy in watching her swiftly adapt to her new tank. They even named the octopus Terrence and all was well for a few months until Terrence started laying eggs in December. The octopus laid 50 eggs and they started hatching in February, Soon their giant aquarium was full of octopus toddlers and Clifford has been documenting the process on TikTok.
The surprising thing was that usually, octopuses die within two months of giving birth to their babies, but Terrence survived. And so the Clifford family welcomed Pearl, Melinda, Jay-Sea, Sea-yonceeé, Rocket Larry and others to the mix, although they had a hard time telling them apart from each other. But the point is neither was the tank was big enough to fit all the baby octopuses nor did the family know how to take care of them.
Cameron Clifford told The New York Post that they could not save many hatchlings. They gave away the remaining ones and they now reside with a local reptile scientist known affectionately as Dr Tim. Terrence is alive and well and still living with the Clifford family.
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