Ruby The Octopus May Be As Smart As Your Five-Year-Old

Meet Ruby. She's the Giant Pacific octopus and resident at the 26,000 square foot indoor aquarium SEA LIFE in Charlotte-Concord that may be as smart as your five-year-old!

That's right, a Giant Pacific octopus can develop the mental capacity of a five-year-old with proper engagement. SEA LIFE has designed an Octopus Enrichment program for Ruby that will include her solving puzzle-type activities with a trained team of SEA LIFE aquarists. Her first enrichment program has her tentacle painting on paper using positive treat reinforcement. Check out her work below -she's a regular eight-tentacled Picasso! 

The SEA LIFE in Aukland New Zealand partnered with Sony and were able to teach their Giant Pacific octopus, Rambo, to take pictures of visitors using a specially mounted camera in her tank. How cool is that? Next thing you know she'll be fighting with her sibling octopi over whose turn it is to play Minecraft on the iPad. 

You can meet Ruby and watch as she engages in SEA LIFE's Octopus Enrichment programs each day at 2:15PM in her tank in the Shipwreck area of the aquarium. To plan your visit or learn more about SEA LIFE you can go to www.visitsealife.com/charlotte-concord.  

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Dive in with the Octonauts at Sea Life Charlotte

Sound the Octo-Alert!! The Octonauts are diving in to Sea Life Charlotte at Concord Mills September 6th-28th. Your family can get up close and personal with Captain Barnacles and Peso during scheduled meet and greets. Then take your little guppies to explore Sea Life's 5,000+ aquatic creatures, including their hands on touch pool. A big thanks to our guest blogger Stacie Taylor for reporting back on the nautical fun at Sea Life. Octonauts, let's do this!

When my daughter was born I had to figure out ways to entertain my 3 year old son while nursing her. Not an easy task! My son would quickly grow bored of playing with his toys alone. Enter: The Octonauts. For 25 consecutive minutes my son was completely engrossed in Captain Barnacle’s sea life adventures and honestly, so was I. The show was both entertaining and educational, minus the annoying voices/songs/etc. What more could a mom ask for? We quickly became fans of the show and 2 years later we have acquired every single Octonaut toy, and my kids know more about the ocean and sea creatures than I do.

We visited Captain Barnacles and Peso at Sea Life Charlotte and there were many cute back drops for photo-ops and a few child-sized tables set up where children could engage in coloring activities. My 5 year old son who was in Kindergarten during the media meet and greet couldn't attend, but would have loved it (we plan to bring him this weekend). My 2.5 year old was certain to maintain a 5 foot distance from the characters so she could enjoy them from afar, but really enjoyed the aquarium.

Where: Charlotte-Concord Sea Life Aquarium
When: September 6-28, 2014
What: Scheduled meet and greets with Peso and Captain Barnacles (see below for specific times), a fun fact finding trail, coloring activity, and special viewings of Octonauts episodes.
Captain Barnacles Daily at 11:00, 12:00, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 Peso Daily at 11:30, 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30, 4:30
Website: http://www.visitsealife.com/charlotte-concord/

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