SEATTLE -- In a dark corner deep in the bowels of the Seattle Aquarium, a mottled red tentacle slithers out of a saltwater tank and over the rusty metal edge. Another follows, groping until both tentacles encounter human flesh and wrap themselves around it, clinging with hundreds of rubbery suckers.

"I'm being slimed!" Roland Anderson chuckles as his hand disappears amid the tentacles.

The biologist grins affectionately as he withdraws his hand, cephalopod suckers popping like bubble wrap as they disengage. The octopus retreats down the aquarium glass, eight tentacles moving with balletic choreography.

Anderson and octopus share a mission: education. The public image of octopuses has suffered at the hands of Hollywood. Anderson counts at least 60 movies, from "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" to "It Came From Beneath the Sea," that portray monster octopuses or squid devouring people, submarines, even the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's unfair, Anderson says, but he maintains a sense of humor. And if a monster cephalopod were to appear anywhere, it might as well be here on Puget Sound, which is home to the largest octopus in the world -- O. dofleini, better known as the "giant Pacific octopus."

At about 40 pounds, the aquarium's Ursula is no monster. In the wild, giant Pacifics have been known to exceed 100 pounds, measuring more than 12 feet from the tip of one tentacle to another.

Their close cousins, O. rubescens or "red octopuses," are a scaled-down version. They grow to about a half-pound and fit comfortably in a teacup. More likely it would be a discarded beer bottle, Anderson says. In fact, yesterday's litter may benefit Puget Sound's octopus population, providing habitat on sandy bottoms that might otherwise be unfriendly to homeless cephalopods.

The octopus is a physiological masterpiece -- eight tentacles, each of which can operate independently or in graceful symphony with the others, all emerging from beneath a soft, hoodlike mantle topped by two eyes that seem to size up aquarium visitors with profound skepticism.

They are jet-propelled, ingesting sea water and ejecting it at will through a flexible funnel. They are masters of disguise, instantly flashing from red to orange to brown to white and back again.

Unburdened by a skeleton, they are expert contortionists, squeezing through impossibly small spaces. They are strong enough to lift more than their own weight. And they are very, very smart, Anderson emphasizes -- at least by invertebrate standards.

More to the point, his research at the Seattle Aquarium suggests strongly that your neighborhood octopus has a personality.

Researchers believe octopuses spawn only once, Anderson says, but they do it very well. The male uses a specialized tentacle to deliver a spermatophore, or packet of sperm, to the female, who tucks it away for future reference. When she's ready, she uses the sperm to fertilize her thousands of eggs and deposits them under a rock.

"For an octopus, there is no such thing as safe sex," Anderson explains. After mating, the male "goes a little crazy," stops eating, abandons its den -- an apparent act of chivalry that frees up space for spawning females -- and dies. The female guards her brood for several months, manipulating the eggs, using her funnel to keep them clean. She, too, stops eating, her body shrinking until the eggs hatch.

And then she dies.

Octopuses have many predators, ranging from large fish to people. The ancient Greeks simply lowered clay pots to known octopus habitat and left them there a day or so; when they hauled them back to the surface, the newly resident octopus became tomorrow's seafood special.

The strategy still works. Octopuses can be caught with a rubber tire tied to a rope. The aquarium once inherited a healthy 25-pounder caught by a guest from his window at the nearby Edgewater Hotel.

Anderson, however, prefers to catch them by hand, scuba-diving into known "octopus holes" in northwest Washington. A single shipwreck in Discovery Bay proved to be home to at least eight giant octopuses.

Collectors entice them out of their dens, grab a tentacle or two and stuff them into a plastic bag.

"You avoid handling them too much," Anderson says, "but the fact is, they can take a fair amount of handling without doing any harm."

But be careful; they are escape artists. A 35-pounder at the Seattle Aquarium once lifted the 60-pound lid off its tank and crawled out.

Anderson has tried keeping an octopus in the main tank. Alas, it rejected frozen herring and other handouts in favor of its live neighbors. Visitors reacted poorly to watching their favorite salmon snatched and devoured by resident O. dofleini.

In most respects, however, the octopus adapts readily to living in captivity, Anderson says. Being solitary creatures, they seem perfectly happy in small spaces.

Happy? Yes, octopuses have emotions. They wear them on all eight sleeves.

"Color changes seem to be linked to behavior," Anderson says. "We're investigating how and why, but they seem to have a range of messages: 'I'm ready to mate now,' or 'Predator coming!' or 'Stay away from that female or else!' "

And then there's: "Leave me alone, I'm taking a nap."

With mammal-like eyes and brains, the octopus exhibits un- invertebrate behaviors such as sleep. Visit the aquarium on a quiet morning and you're liable to find Ursula or cousin Biff (who lives in a smaller tank nearby) snoozing -- eyes closed, tentacles limp, body color a murky white. Tap on the glass and the eyes open, tentacles come to life and body color flashes to red.

"Their intelligence is probably comparable with a white rat," Anderson says. "They can be taught to open jars or to go through a maze."

The journal Science recently reported Anderson's research on octopus "play." Each of eight octopuses was provided with a white pill bottle. Some ignored it. Some used their funnels to blow it away. Still others shot it around the tank, retrieved it, and shot it again and again.

"Some did this for periods of more than five minutes," Anderson reports. "We see this as repetitive, long-term behavior with no apparent function -- except that it feels good, which is the definition of play."

The fact that some played and others didn't suggests octopuses have personalities -- social, aggressive, shy and more.

Soon Ursula will be returned to Puget Sound, possibly to spawn before living out her remaining months. As a relatively social octopus, she should fare well in the wild, Anderson says, a little wistfully. She will find a willing male and a rock suitable for spawning.

And perhaps it's not completely unscientific to speculate that, when the parting occurs, the sweet sorrow just might be mutual.

Pub Date: 3/03/99