ENDANGERED ANIMAL
ROUGHY UMBRELLA OCTOPUS
I chose the Roughy Umbrella Octopus for my endangered animal project. It's a deep sea octopus that was found off the coast of NZ, and is critically endangered.
Roughy Umbrella Octopi are mysterious, but it is believed they are primarily benthic, meaning they live at the bottom of the ocean in cold, deep water. The only photograph is the one featured above by O’Shea on the Tree of World archive in 1999, at the time of the original discovery of the species.
The population of the species is unknown, but it's believed there was a severe decline of 70%-80% over recent generations, due to overfishing. Recovery is unlikely because of the lifecycle of the octopus, with a long process of development, and no current protections in place for the species. The IUCN, who named the RUO critically endangered in 2014 states, “several characteristics likely to make them rather slow to recover from population declines: longevity, slow growth, and low fecundity.”
Ideation
I considered the features of the octopus. It has 8 subequal tentacles with suckers, purple flesh, ink, and this species has very cute little fins on their head. I listed these features out, and began brainstorming possible approaches to my model.
Some ideas didn't work as expected, and in some aspects I went a different direction. For example, rose tea didn't work as dye for the octobody because it wasn't pigmented enough. I used beets and black tea instead, and still felt I could've pushed the pigment further.
Prototyping
I had an idea to make a little ink sack out of used plastic, and burn the edges with a lighter to seal the little pouch. I made the shape, and first I burned it way too much. The thin plastic required very little heat. I tried again, carefully, and pinched the edges as I went. I tested if it could hold liquid, then put some tea inside. My first ink sack prototype was too small, and the tea wasn't inky enough. I used a bigger piece of disposed, malleable plastic and old, burnt espresso for blacker ink, which gave me my most successful sack. I'll be doing an ink release in class. I used the same method to create the little fins on the octopus's "head". I used a wrinkled plastic bag to imitate their crepey texture.
I also did some prototyping with slime- testing different textures and trying to mold in into the body or as a "skin". Ultimately the texture didn't work out, I tried to see how it would mold on its own as well as on canvas.
I went on to the body of the octopus. I wanted to use a 4 point start balloon I found, but once I cut it up to make the pattern for my soft sculpture, it didn't have the right kind of structure. I also experimented with slimy to have that slippery sea creature feeling. The slime wouldn't be able to last, be shaped or be transported in to class. I have plenty of left over raw canvas from the edges of my paintings that I always am looking for uses for, so I drew a pattern on that and cut it out. I tried to cut one shape that could drape into octopus shape, but found it to be much better to cut two shapes and sew them together. Before sewing, I dyed the cut out pieces of canvas using beets and tea, and laid them out to dry. Then I sewed them together, sewed the fins on, and glued bubble wrap onto the tentacles as suckers.
Final Product
I mounted the octopus on a plastic cup to present it. The life of the materials I used for this project basically all end in a landfill, unlikely to be recycled or upcycled. I used mostly single use plastic from transportation and shipping, as well as left over food products. The food and agriculture industry drives the need for overfishing, which threatens the roughy umbrella octopi to the point of near extinction.
