What species are the ones on octo pets? and secondly what is there average lifespan. And what available cephlapod has the longest life span?

Octopets carries O. Bimaculoides or "Bimacs".

The longest lived available ceph is the Nautilus - dont go there :grin:, requires a huge tank and chiller and lots of research.

Check out this if you havent already...... http://www.tonmo.com/cephcare/cephcarejump.php

:welcome: to Tonmo, do lots of reading, there's heaps of info on this site.

Even under the best of care, cephalopods are short lived in captivity...be sure this is something you really want to undertake prior to trying !

O. Bimaculoides have a life span of 12-18 months, there life span may depend on the temperature of the water and their enviornment.

Incase you were wondering also...the longest lived octopus species is generally the Giant pacific with an average lifespan of about 2 1/2 to 3 yrs. Otherwise theirs the arctic octopus living up to 6 yrs...but thats WAY beyond the limits, lol. They live up north in the deep depths of the cold ocean.

That 12-18 months for a bimac sounds good on paper, but I believe the longest that a bimac has lived for anyone on here is around 8-10 months? If anyone has had a different experience, I'm sure they'll correct me.

Dan

That 12-18 months for a bimac sounds good on paper, but I believe the longest that a bimac has lived for anyone on here is around 8-10 months? If anyone has had a different experience, I'm sure they'll correct me.

Dan
WOW! Is that really the case?! I was hoping for at least a 12 month ROI...

also bimacs, if farm raised, are said to be relatively hardy. i mean as much as any octo can be hardy.lol

The first generation of Tonmo bimacs that I kept records on had three bimacs that lasted 10 months or more. Since they were wild caught,they tended to be a bit older when they arrived, too. My Ollie was 3-4 months old when she came (my estimate) and lived about 10 months, so that would make her 13-14 months old when she died.

No one here on Tonmo has been able to keep a bimac in a tank for much more than 10 months and this corresponds to the experiences of other bimac keepers before Tonmo.

I don't know where the "1 1/2 years" comes from - can't seen to track it down.

Nancy

Howdy,

Cephbase shows "Age at Maturity" for O. bimaculoides as 341 days:

http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/spdb/lifehistory.cfm?CephID=508

Unfortunately I can't find what they define as Maturity. If they mean sexual maturity, it's not unreasonable to assume they've got a total lifespan on the order of 12 to 15 months since octos don't necessarily breed immediately on 'coming of age'. Even if a bimac did breed as soon as possible, it's also known that females can delay fertilization for a fairly long time while waiting for optimum conditions to lay their eggs.

Since Octopets ships their bimacs at a pretty young age it seems possible that there could be a bit of extra life extension while the animal is waiting for Mr/Ms Right to come along.

Temperature does affect both lifespan and growth rate. Here's a paper on the subject:
http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/Tcp/pdf/Wood99.pdf
Here's a quote from that paper:
*****************************
Octopus bimaculoides
kept at 23 °C had their life span shortened by about
20% but were three times larger when 5 months old
compared to octopuses raised at 18 °C (Forsythe and
Hanlon 1988).
*****************************
Hope this helps.

Agedly yours,

Alex