Kong did not have a happy Valentine's Day. Seattle Aquarium cancelled their scheduled Valentine's Day event, an octopus mating session, because they feared onlookers would witness an act of cannibalism, CNN reports. One of the aquarium's octopi, Kong, was too big for them to find a proper mate for. The 70-pound octopus would most likely eat any creature the aquarium could find for him, they feared.
"We've never seen an animal that was ready to mate that was smaller than 35 pounds. Beyond that, we won't even bother,." said Tim Carpenter, the aquarium's curator of fish and invertebrates, according to The Huffington Post. Instead, the aquarium had divers swimming with the giant octopus for onlookers to watch.
This comes 10 years after a disastrous event for the aquarium, when the placed an octopus inside the same tank as a shark. The octopus very quickly ate the shark while visitors watched, Christian Science Monitor reports.
Kong is a Giant Pacific octopus. They usually live between three to five years and can reach weights of over 90 pounds. It's not until the end of their lives that they begin feeling the need to breed, much like Kong.
Unfortunately, the blind date they had arranged for the cephalopod just wasn't meant to be.
