What a day.

So Johnraptor is the virginsaur the acient scrolls were talking about that would lead them to the new world, atlantis?

It's like you read my mind! :D

By the way, the Seattle Aquarium recently held its annual Octopus Week Celebration. *pauses to contemplate the beauty of Octopus Week Celebration* So I share with you this story from the Seattle PI:

"What are they doing?" the little boy asked six straight times, gazing at a popular Seattle Aquarium tank Tuesday.

"How did they do that, Grandma?"

Grandma, unlike Mikala the octopus, took evasive action. The "Octopus Week" biology lesson came, anyway, after a nearby teenager yelled to his friend, "Hey, Josh! They're mating!"

All righty, then.

Maybe it was the dozen red roses in the tank, or the mood music, or the fact that octopus expert Roland Anderson changed the tank's water flow to spur Mikala and Lancelot to at least move into the same tank.

It would not be the first time the Aquarium has tried to breed octopuses, Anderson said, but it is a tricky and unpredictable business.

Magic or method, a delighted Valentine's Day crowd watched as the female Mikala, previously refusing to budge off rocks in her tank, swam with all eight arms towards Lancelot's tank through a "tunnel of love."

The two previously had touched arms, "tasting" each other with their suction cups or "suckers" through a perforated barrier blocking the tunnel. But they hadn't had a chance to mate until Tuesday afternoon, when a diver removed the tunnel barrier.

It took awhile. Lancelot remained stuck to the same spot in his tank for more than an hour. Usually, Anderson said, the male octopus makes the moves.

"He has no clue what's going on," groaned a female Aquarium volunteer.

Mikala, perhaps agreeing, swam toward him and reached to within 8 inches of the anti-Casanova with a gracefully arching arm.

"She is so ready; she's really being aggressive," said Anna Fabrizio, a Mount Rainier High School student and Aquarium volunteer.

Mikala then fanned out her arms to their full 7-foot span, as if flashing Lancelot, and suddenly a collective "Whoooooaaaaaa!" went up as Lancelot "pounced" and two octopuses and 16 arms floated to the bottom of the tank in one unified clump.

"That was hot!" offered one male onlooker.

"It was like aquatic ballet," said a female onlooker.

Or, as a Seattle Aquarium interpreter put it, "They are occupying the same spot in the tank."

Anderson said although the telltale sign of a "spermatophore" -- a spaghettilike strand of sperm -- was not visible, he believed the mating between two 3-year-old, 30-pound octopuses will prove successful. Mikala will be monitored to see if she lays eggs.

Octopuses, "the smartest invertebrates by far," are solitary animals. They are asocial though not anti-social. They come together to mate and then die, an evolutionary sacrifice much like Pacific salmon, Anderson said.

Lancelot, like other male octopuses, will be released before that happens, Anderson said, and the Aquarium will bring in other octopuses.

"It's kind of sad," Anderson said. "But octopuses only live three to four years. That may seem short to us, but it's a full life span to an octopus."

There is also a photo with a caption that says "To celebrate Valentine's Day, staff at the Aquarium tried to coax their two resident octopuses into a blind date of sorts."

This...is perhaps not relevant to your post.