What is the name for a female octopus?

A female octopus (known as a hen) may lay 100 thousand eggs over its one-to-two-week fertile period. The transparent eggs are protected by the mother in the octopus' lair for several weeks. In most species, the eggs hatch, and the larval octopi swim for the surface where they may remain for a month or more. The vast majority of them die during this period. Weather and turbulent water get many of them, while others are swallowed up along with plankton by larger sea creatures.

The octopus is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda. Around 300 species are recognised, and the order is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like other cephalopods, the octopus is bilaterally symmetric with two eyes and a beak, with its mouth at the center point of the eight limbs. The soft body can rapidly alter its shape, enabling octopuses to squeeze through small gaps. They trail their eight appendages behind them as they swim. The siphon is used both for respiration and for locomotion, by expelling a jet of water. Octopuses have a complex nervous system and excellent sight, and are among the most intelligent and behaviourally diverse of all invertebrates.