About 25 octopuses surfaced over the course of an hour near shops by the wharf in Monterey on Oct. 28, according to a Facebook post by Monterey Bay Whale Watch.
Employees said even after 20 years of working at the shop, they've never seen a "sight like it," the company said.
The whale watching company's guess as to why the cephalopods all came swarming to the harbor is simple - oxygen.
Millions of anchovies in the water recently have been "depleting the oxygen supply," forcing these octopuses to seek oxygen at the surface, the agency said.
Octopuses are invertebrates that have three functioning hearts, two acting to move blood to the gills and the third to help pump blood throughout the rest of their bodies, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
They use their arms to "walk" on the ocean floor and are about 90 percent muscle, while their lack of bones makes it easy for them to fit in small spaces, the organization said.
Some of the tentacled friends were eaten by gulls and otters, but others managed to get away by releasing ink or popping down quickly, making "quite the sight" for those at the "right place at the right time," the post said.
Monterey is about a 120-mile drive south of San Francisco.
Source: Lexington Herald-Leader
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