Just thought I would let everyone in the Tampa Bay area know that my local pet store, about 3 blocks from me, has just gotten in a Mimic Octopus. If you would like to see it you can go to Petmart (not Petsmart) in the Bay Pines Plaza. It is the coolest thing I have ever seen and I've been keeping saltwater creatures for over 30 years now. Would seriously consider it if the life span wasn't so short but $400 for something that might not make it for over a couple of weeks is kinda steep.

Anyway its a rare chance to see something very rarely seen in captivity.

Kirk

GAG! :yuck: That is the biggst load of bull @$#! I have ever heard! 400 $ For a octerpus. Holly friggin crap! :bugout: Just go catch ur own! Where do u think they got theirs! Sheesh! I jus caught my own today! Aquarists these day.... Pffff!

Nick, your reply makes you sound like a moron. You obviously don't have a clue as to what a Mimic Octopus is and you certainly didn't go out and catch one today. You don't just go out and catch a Mimic. They are so rare that only a couple are caught a year. They are hardly ever even seen let alone caught. They are so rare that they don't even have a scientific name assigned to them yet. Do a Google search on Mimic Octopus and learn Nick before you post stuff you know nothing about. I personally am amazed that it is only $400 considering the rarety of it.

Kirk

Hi Kirk

yes, it seems to be the zebra/mimic/wonderpus season again! A local wholesaler to me was offered 3 from Bali just this week and asked me about them. He is not going to ship them in...

I do wonder about their prices as these ones were offered at £20 - £30 trade...

I agree, what a waste of lives and money!

You could maybe even asume that they are easier to catch at this time of year as they are guarding eggs?! Perhaps they are being caught before the eggs have hatched? Either way, we shouldnt encourage their sale/capture.

thanks for posting Kirk
Colin

Yeah, it seems they are banking on the "different" thing to make the extra dollars...the wholesale price in california is 75.00...neat animals...one could argue that if no one keeps them, we'll never know more about them, though. (its a thin argument though, isn't it) I wonder if the guys at octopets will get any?
greg

1: I said that I caught my own octo as a generlization (I caught a day octo)
2: So they can be caught
3: 400 #$&@! DOLLARS?!?!?!?

Why are you so suprised? I regularily see animals for sale in the 10,000- 30,000 dollar range...and some of them are fish.
Dragon Arowana? 28,000.00 USD.

:shock: HOOOOOOLLLLLLLLYYYYYYY #$&!!*#*%$ #!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!! WHAT IS THIS WORLD COMING TO!!!!!!!!?!?!????!!?!? :bonk: :bugout: :lol: :jester: :roflmao:

Well, have you ever seen a live one? It might change your mind...a lot of effort goes into procuring some of these animals ( I am reminded of the trips taken to hunt for cockatoo cichlids...malaria, unfriendly tribesmen, local militia, etc)...hence the cost factor.
Or breeding: it takes almost 7 years to raise a dragon arowana, then trying to find the right mate (picky fish, they are), then managing to breed them, and raise the juveniles...lots of cash laid out in just speculation...plus all of the permits, since they are endangered.
greg

Well if they are endagered y sell um to people? :?

Colin, thanks for your post. I too wonder about those prices. Everything I have found in doing internet searchs for mimic's says that Zebra's and wonderpus are often confused for Mimic's. Zebra's are not that rare and Wonderpus seem to be more common as well. I just saw a national geographic show on the Mimic a month ago that said they were very, very rare as does all the search's I have done. I could be wrong but that is just what I have seen and read. Also I was unable to find any sites on the internet selling Mimic's.

The Mimic at the local store has legs that are about 3 times the length of a normal octopus and the legs look like the Leafy Sea Dragon legs. I too don't think $400 for something so rare is all that much as I have seen small sharks selling for that amount. The problem I have is with the life span being so short. And as someone else said many fish sell for much much more. When I first started in this hobby you couldn't buy a Long Nose Hawk Fish for under $150. Now you can get one for $30. Also the Tinkers Butterfly fish which is my favorite fish is $300 if you can find one. I have only seen 2 for sale in my 30 sum years of doing this. Nick may have seen Tinkers for less since they come from very deep waters in Hawaii but they are almost impossible to find in shops around here.

If you want to talk about expensive fish then look at the prices on Koi. I have a pond and have kept Koi for 10 years or more and still can't see the differance in a $200 Koi and a $20,000 one. I have seen Koi sell for as much as $250,000. Of course you can keep a Koi all of your life and actuallly pass it on to the next generation as they do in Japan but that is still a lot for a fish of any kind.

Kirk

Asian arowana in the US? isn't that illegal? Anyway the arowana mature at different ages depending on the colour. Anywhere from 3-7 years. But they can live to 50yrs so its not that bad. The Red and gold ones fetch a high price because the chinese believe red sybolizes luck and the japanese believe gold symbolizes...well gold and wealth.

A baby 2 inch red arowana which is barely able to swim can fetch around $200, while it costs more for a gold one. Sorry for going off-topic, just wanted to say cuz i visited 2 arowana farms last year.

Mimics are really sought after by people who keep exotic animals. After seeing many of their behaviours in the wild (on tv), many people are tempted keep one of these as well as flamboyant cuttles. They are also extremely hard to find as they come from murky waters in indonesia. So it comes as no suprise why they're priced so high.

The mimic costing hundreds of dollars if ever sold doesn't suprise me. A live mimic in the US for sale in a LFS DOES suprise me. There was a new special on them on the science channel called "The Mimic Octopus: Incredible Imposters" that demonstrates just how rare and hard-to-find they are. It was a 2-3 week expedition searching for it(the mimic), and on the 3rd-to-last day, they finally find one after asking the natives of the area. You do see some neat footage though. Suprisingly, you actually see almost ten minutes or so of "mimic footage". Personally, I think I'll see when it's on again...

Cephkid, now you have got me wondering if what they have is really a Mimic. All the research I've done says how rare they are and I only saw a small portion of the Mimic show on the Science channal. Just the part where they had actually found one. I am thinking that this could be a wunderpus instead. It came from a large wholesaler in Tampa called Seagrest Farms. Web site is www.seagrestfarms.com. Most all saltwater stores in the Tampa/St.Pete area buy from them. They are huge and do get in a lot of rare stuff but I wonder if they are correct in calling this a Mimic. They said that they only get around 2 per year so it sounded possible. Having not any experience actually seeing one other then briefly on tv and some crappy photos on the net it is hard to compare and tell. I will go down today and see if they have it in a tank that you can see it better in now as they were setting up a special tank just for it. It was in a plastic container in a poorly lit tank when I saw it. I have searched the net and not been able to find any for sale.

Kirk

see if they will let you take a pic :)

The west coast dealers call any red and white banded octopus a mimic...so god only knows what they actually are...

I know the mimic has "horn-like" structures on top of its eyes to fool crabs into coming closer to attack the "rival" and get eaten. Pretty small if I remember correctly too...

Well, I went to the pet store this evening with my wife to see the Mimic and to my amazment it had been sold already. Didn't even last for 2 days and someone dished out $400 and grabbed it. Now I guess I will never know for sure if it really was a Mimic or not. I told a saleperson their that I had some reservations as to whether it was really a Mimic or not and they said that they had put it in a tank by the Lion Fish (there are quite a few in the tank) and that it was mimicing the Lionfish. I know on the show I saw it mimiced a Lion Fish, Sea Snake, and a Flounder. The person I talked with was a reptile person and not a fish person so he didn't know much about them but claims to have seen this happen. Who know's? I still have my doubts but I guess anything is possible. Guess I'll never know for sure.

Kirk

I sure hope the people who baught ti know what they ear doin' and give it a good home. :(

Hi Kirk

the lionfish story sounds a bit dubious to me... i have still to be satisfied that it is actually mimicing anything.... people see what they want to see. however, i have knocked back buying these species several times now so i guess i'll never see for myself.

$400!!!!!

I wouldn't believe the story that person said, honestly. If a LFS gets in a $400 specimen, the last thing they're going to do is throw it in a tank with a lionfish and risk stressing it. That just doesn't make good sense..

And as far as it being a mimic, I think I would agree with everyone else -- it would probably catch a much higher price than $400! Think about this special where the people looked for such a long time to find one -- it sounds like if you were a professional collector you wouldn't even be able to capture one for under $400 of resources/time, let alone ship it and then mark it up in an LFS for profit. It just doesn't jive for me

I will need to learn more about this 'wonderpus' though, sounds interesting and much less rare/endangered?

Robert :cyclops:

Andy had some pics and info up on a thread "my wonderpus"...neat looking octo.

RCL-I agree with you about the price but you misread my post a little. They didn't put it IN the tank with the lionfish, they put it in a tank NEXT TO the lionfish. So they say.

Colin-They definetly do mimic lionfish, sea snakes, and flounder and crabs. I saw that for myself on the special on tv. And it really did look like a lionfish, seasnake,flounder and crab when it mimiced them. It was a very amazing thing to watch. Whether it actually did so in the pet store is another story.

Kirk

Just....in my opinion, I think ANY living thing should be PRICELESS.
They say humans are "you are priceless", well so should the living things on this earth be too, not just us. Im surprised octopuses are basically soled for only freaken 20 buX. wow. It's just like going to the store and buying a human being for 20 bux. hey...were animals too. I just dont see why animals are treatest un-equal to humans, mabye our lives ARE more precious than theres simply cuz we have control over them and we have the intelligence.

But anyways...that's my opinion. And yes a mimic Octopus is extrememly, extrememly rare. Very beautiful, beautiful animals.

There is always next time! Can u catch them in ur area?

Only if he is living off a dinghy near a foreign coast!!!

Catch one? Care going to indonesia for a try? :heee:

The mimic octopus is extremely rare. They live in indonesia, and are most "commonly" found in silty sand-flats. The mimic is called a mimic because it does just that. Though, the lionfish act doesn't look like much of anything to me. The most convincing act in my opinion is the flounder. I have come to belive that specific mimicry varies in individuals-as I have seen clips of two variations of the jellyfish act, for example-but I have no substatial proof myself. :roll: I am but a poor, strange little 13 year old...who is broke...and rather restricted in ceph interations...and broke...did I mention broke? :P A mimic octopus would be very difficult to catch over on this side of the puddle... :wink: Anyone on this board wouldn't be able to catch em where they are-the locals to where the mimic octopus resides speak a different language! :lol:

Yes, only if you go to Indonesia could you attempt to catch one. Certainly not here in the states. Around here in the Tampa area all you see are normal looking octopus. By that I mean not like Zebra's or Wunderpus or anything that has much color or variation to it. Just your normal octopus as most people think of as normal. And our water quality isn't that great around here anymore either. Not like Hawaii or Indonesia so unless you are in south Florida like say the Keys where the water quality is clearer then it is hard to catch your own. Unless you go out deeper with scuba gear.

However, here is something that happened to me about 10 years ago. I was snorkling in some very clear water at the time around south St.Pete at a park and I was collecting empty Olive shells. They are a small, aprox. 2" round shell with a nice pattern on them. I was putting some in my tank and some in a clear base lamp I was making. I had them laying out and low and behold after some time 3 different shells had very small octopus come out of them. I put the 3 of them in a 20 gal. tank to watch. I got some small hermits from the beach and they gobbled them down. They didn't fight or anything but the strang thing was, and I don't know how common this is, but one of them had like electricial currents that ran up and down its legs and body. It looked like it was plugged in. Like the electric flame scallop does if you have ever seen one of them. Is this common in octopus? The other 2 didn't show any signs of this. I kept them for a week and then because I wasn't set up to really keep them I took them back to the bay and let them go. They were very small. The mantle probably wasn"t over 1".

I was just wondering if anyone else's octopus display this electriciy in its body like that. It was an awsome thing to see.

Kirk

I don't know about octos doing this but cuttles certainly do, theres a video of mine in the video gallery where it seems to be doing nothing, was this what you meant? Strange, normally octo's won't co-exist and turn cannibalistic, maybe there was surplus food and they were still small.

neat story...never have seen that sort of activity in an octo...must have been something!
greg