While I was watching Tuvalu's video on YouTube, a secondary video, Octopus on the Catwalk was next in line and is also a great one to watch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8h7USlozM0&NR=1

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10662 :lol:

Yes, that is very cool.

Our Synchronization is lacking :mrgreen:

:)

That is quite a smart little monkey though. Amazing.

Excellent, an octopus with packrat syndrome! :smile:

Back in the days of filming A. margnatus for the walking octopus paper we heard a story of one seen almost completely clammed up in two halves of a coconut shell while and sticking two arms out the bottom and running along the sand- like fred flintstone in his car. Apparently a picture was taken but neither the photographer nor the evidence could be found.

Mucktopus,
When I saw the video I went looking for the credits and was actually surprised you were not the photographer :wink:. From you note I guess adding three initials removed some of the diving :confused:

I was lucky to see this first hand in Indonesia. This guy was running across the bottom with his favorite shell

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w162/allisonfinch_photos/Octopusmobilehome.jpg

He stopped and sat in it like a bathtub.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w162/allisonfinch_photos/octopussittinginashell.jpg

then he pulled it over himself upside down for cover.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w162/allisonfinch_photos/emailimprP2131243.jpg

Too wonderful to watch it.

another marginatus nearby didn't like our attention.

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w162/allisonfinch_photos/emailimprP2141367.jpg

wow....that last photo is very striking! Beautiful work.

Gorgeous.

What great photos, and what beautiful octopuses!

I am soooo envious. The closest I have knowingly come to seeing an octopus in the ocean was the one that climbed out of the dead coral we collected when I was a young teenager!

Absolutely fantastic! Pardon my ignorance, but is the species really called "Coconut Octopus" or is there another common name? Or, for that matter, is this behavior seen in more than one species?

:grad:

In Indonesia, they really do call it a coconut octopus. It comes from their habit of taking two halves of a discarded coconut shell and holding them together with them inside. It is funny seeing them peeking out. As you approach, they slam the shells together. I did try to gently pry them open, to no avail. If you put strain into opening them, you could do them damage.

Before they hit the bigtime in the public eye they were known as the margined, or veined octopus because of the dark purple scribbling between the raised 'patches' in their skin. But the "coconut octopus" is so much more fun! Given that it lives in Lembeh- the Mecca of muck diving, it's no wonder so much footage of it has shown up in the past few years. I'm happy to see the little guys being appreciated and getting documented by so many people. Those are some fantastic shots posted in this thread!!

Yeah Dwhatley- not getting in much diving for work in these days, but I do have the occasional chance to sink and breathe- got to dive with small D. gigas in the Gulf of CA in May, and this summer went looking for the ever-elusive long-armed sand octo in Hawaii (its other common name is the $3000 octopus...and rising). The postdoc at MBARI is well worth a temporary hiatus from the equator (though I can't wait to get back as soon as logistically possible).

True. Marginatus is their real name.