Hi all, some of you may remember me from questioning the ID of my A. Aculeatus earlier this month....I have an interesting question for you physiology/biology experts out there.
When I got Beaker, he had 6 1/2 arms. This was several months ago. He is nearly finished regenerating the arms he lost, and when his arms slowed their growing, that's when I started noticing changes of traits and size in his body as a whole.
Now, I by no means claim to be a biology expert, but I do know that each cell in an octopus carries a blueprint for the makeup of their entire bodies [which obviously helps assign and reassign cells when regenerating]. I am wondering.....if the cells are busy rebuilding something that was lost that needs to exist....that they are possibly incapable of carrying on the "normal" maturing that would be expected of a healthy, whole octopus.
Is it possible that when octos are regenerating arms, growth will stunt in the rest of the body?
I have tried to find research on this, but am falling way short. Anyone have any pearls of wisdom on this? I am stumped, but fascinated....

my vulgaris' arms grew back in a matter of about 2 months completely

And did he continue growing during this period as well, joefish?

Nancy

no one has any ideas????


i find that awfully hard to believe..... :wink:

age? water quality? eating habits?

dunno, just throwing out things that came to my mind....

i would imagine to regrow a limb, thered have to be an uptick in intake for all the nutrients and proteins needed... maybe they slow the regneration down if there isnt an overabundance of food....

:hmm:

I think it's a great question, and I have some guesses but absolutely no facts... if I have time in the next day or two, I may toss out some hand-waving guesses, but I'm much more curious if anyone's studied this and can provide some input that has actual facts involved!

from what i can tell his overall growth did slow while regenerating the arms but as soon as they were of substantial size he started growing rapidly again. now his mantle is around 3 inches and legs (all 8) about 6 inches long