so just today i was surfing the forums and noticed that there is a species of octo that people are keeping in there aquariums that I have never heard of before, the o. filosus.

Has this species just been discovered as being compatible for the home aquarium or has it been around for a while but recently has boomed in popularity?

Or am i just an idiot and its been around for quite some time? :confused:

~Michael

I am not sure of the answer but I can confirm you are not an idiot. :smile:

Apparently Colin has kept O. Filosus before.

I think it's probably just a lack of identification.

Yes, this species of octopus has been kept before.
We're just seeing a lot of them now, including several kept by our TONMO.com members.

However, as Shipposhack pointed out on another thread, it appears that the name has been changed, and we now have Octopus hummelincki , not Octopus filosus, and the new name is a lot harder to spell!:smile:

International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature
http://www.iczn.org/BZNJune2006opinions.html

Nancy

I went by what I found on Cephbase.org, and then noticed Colin's pictures.

Also, I found many photography sites with O. Filosus pics, but none labeled O. Hummelincki...

Probably because they don't wanna bother spelling Hummelincki XD. I bet people saw the change and said, "That's dumb, I'll stick with the easier one."

Probably because they don't wanna bother spelling Hummelincki XD. I bet people saw the change and said, "That's dumb, I'll stick with the easier one."

Well, I'm not being graded on this so I'm going to do just that myself.

I was trying to tell Neal about this critter and couldn't even spell filosus. I would dearly love to get one and the tank I have should do well but I have nowhere else to put my little mercs.

Animal Mother, how big was Einey when you got him and when he died? My little guys are about 1/4 the size of their mother at 5 months and we are puzzled at their growth. We think Trapper was overly large for a Mercatoris but still expected the babies to be larger at almost half their expected life. They eat well, live together well and seem healthy. Either they live longer than expected or tank raising may produce smaller adults (or the fact that we only had 5 instead of 100 means something).

Octopus 'filosus' was quite a character. If memory serves me right it was sold as a bimaculoides (bimaculatus), but this was just based on the ocelli by the importer. The ID of filosus was only based on visual characteristics and was never actually proven scietifically but its location was the wrong side of North America for either bimac species.

Are they not a large egg species too?

Are they not a large egg species too?

I sure hope so! It would be nice to have a fighting chance at raising some.

Dwhatley, Einey was about 1.5 inches when I got him, and doubled in size by the time he died. I think he was still fairly small for his species, and that was on a regular diet of hermits and fiddlers, probably pods as well.

thanks for all your responses, I just wanted to make sure it wasnt some great new species that had just been discovered and I had missed out on it.

Cephalopods: A World Guide lists O. filosus as a small-egged species - therefore the young would be planktonic and almost impossible to raise.

Nancy

Cephalopods: A World Guide lists O. filosus as a small-egged species - therefore the young would be planktonic and almost impossible to raise.

Nancy

Bah! Doh! The ocean has a monopoly on 'em.

Nesis (1982/1987, p. 303) says egg length for O. hummelincki is 1.6-1.8mm. He gives its distribution as 'Tropical western Atlantic from the Bahamas and southern Florida to Baia (Brazil); Caribbean Sea. Mainly near islands, on coral reefs in upper sublittoral.'