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National Zoo's Baby Octopus Has A Name

By: Sabri Ben-Achour // December 21, 2011
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Animal keeper Donna Stockton looks on as the octopus moves away from the finalists' names.
Courtesy of National Zoo (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalzoo/6543833345/in/set-72157628498264913)
Animal keeper Donna Stockton looks on as the octopus moves away from the finalists' names.

The National Zoo's latest resident has a new name. The Zoo asked children to offer up names for its new giant Pacific octopus, which is only the size of a grapefruit right now but it could grow to be 12 feet across in a few years.

The Zoo got 300 suggestions -- there was Mirage and Inkling, Odysseus and Pandora. Keepers narrowed down the list and put the names in plastic spheres inside the tank so the octopus could decide himself. But the mollusk didn't move, and after a while one of the keepers put on a blindfold and just picked one. 

The new name: Pandora. That was the suggestion of 10-year-old Trinity Kimberly from Sterling, Va., who says she came up with the name because octopuses are curious. 

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