Photo by Mehgan Murphy, courtesy Smithsonian’s National Zoo
You can tell the Smithsonian’s National Zoo has been looking for ways to gin up interest in its non-panda animals ever since Butterstick was shipped back to China. The zoo’s latest naming contest, for its brand new Giant Pacific Octopus, is just one such example. Still, octopi are inarguably cool, so let’s make sure he gets a decent name.
Click here to access the online ballot, where you can choose from the following four names:
- Olympus: This octopus arrived at the Zoo just before the 2010 Winter Olympics, and for many zoogoers the octopus gets a gold medal for being a compelling animal.
- Ceph: Octopuses belong to the fascinating group of animals called cephalopods (class Cephalopoda), which means “head-foot.” The arms or feet (podos in Greek) of these animals are on the front of their head (“cephalo” comes from the Greek kephale, for head).
- Octavius: “Octavius the Octopus” is more than just a pretty, alliterative name. The prefix “oct” means eight—that’s how many arms an octopus has, and “Octavius” was the Latin name traditionally given to the eighth child.
- Vancouver: Home may be where the heart is—three hearts in the case of the octopus—and this octopus came the Zoo from an organization in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the end of January.
Vancouver gets tossed for being far too prosaic, and the reasoning for Olympus kinda makes us want to poke our eyes out. So that leaves Octavius, a strong, literary choice, and Ceph, which is just cute. Which one do you guys like better?
The zoo says it will announce the winning name at 2 p.m. on April 7, via the octopus cam.
