OCTOPUS CAUGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 142, 17 June 1936, Page 9

OCTOPUS CAUGHT.

STRANDED ON REEF. FhMD NEAR LADY'S BAY. WIDE SPREAD OT TENTACLES. An octopus, which when spread out measured nine feet from tip to tip of the tentacles, was caught in a pool on the West Tamaki Reef, near Lady's Bay, yesterday afternoon. It attracted considerable attention when displayed at the Auckland Harbour Board's slip this morning. Two of the Auckland Harbour Board's employees, Messrs. W. Clare and F. Parsons, were engaged at painting the

beacon at the end of the reef when the octopus was seen in the pool with the tentacles contracted. Immediately it was touched it spread its arms out, and the hardest work was to shift it from the rocky bottom. With the use of a chain hook the octopus was prized off the rock. It was found that the fish had lost two of its tentacles some time previously. Octopi are not unknown in Auckland harbour and the vicinity, but they are usually of small size and are invariably found in the vicinity of rocks. The specimen captured yesterday was regarded as fair size, although larger ones have from time to time been captured further out in the gulf. One of the Harbour Board employees said that an octopus of the size would be a lurking danger for a bather, when bathing was in full swing, but it was a small one compared to octopi he had seen in the Tongan Group, where the tentacles were as long as twel\e feet and extraordinarily thick.