I am looking for ideas to do a proposal that I could do for a research that has not be fully or looked into at all. In octopus patterning I am looking at something in the camouflage department of it. Any suggestions or places I could look for some ideas would be of a big help.

Hi Chejjj.

Roger Hanlon has done a lot of stuff on cuttlefish colouring and camouflage - theres a new paper out showing they also camouflage at night, which is pretty cool. There might be some good ideas applicable to octopuses in those studies. Off hand I can't think of any papers on octopus camo, but I'm sure plenty of people here can help you better than I can.

Good luck with the proposal.

Robyn.

Yeah I have been talking with Dr. Hanlon and I had him send me that paper so I could read it over. I ended up deciding that I am going to be comparing a primarily nocturnal octopus, O. macropus, and a diurnal octopus, O. vulgaris, that live in similar habitats and see if there is any difference in patterning

Sounds neat, I hope you post it up here as well !

my project is coming along nicely but I was just wondering if anyone knows how much of a diameter for hole that an O. vulgaris or O. macropus with a mantle length of 13-15 cm would be able to squeeze through. I need it for some containment details of a pen I am creating. I don't want to just make it really tiny just small enough that I will have some give on the size needed to keep them contained. Thanks in advance!

Generally speaking and octopus can sqeeze through a hole that is just a little bigger than the diameter of their beak! Sorry I don't know the beak size for these species.

J

chejjjj, not sure if you've seen this video (http://www.tonmo.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/623), but it's worth watching based on your question.

Yes, I have. I was just wondering if anyone knew the size ofthe beak but i have figured out a way around this

well ran into my next wall, does anyone know or knows of a place where I can find out if ophichthus ophis (spotted snake eel) is a visual predator?