6-Legged Hexapus in the News

**Donnerboy** · Mar 03, '08, 5:12pm

Hey,

There's a lttle guy they're calling "Henry." Check out the article here.

**Animal Mother** · Mar 03, '08, 5:17pm

Interesting.

On Cephbase I'm sure I remember reading about several O. briareus that were born with more or less than 8 arms, captions under photographs.

**Clem** · Mar 03, '08, 8:02pm

Interesting...and I like the bit about it being caught inside a lobster pot. Henry's nothing if not ambitious.

Clem

**DWhatley** · Mar 04, '08, 2:21am

Clem,
It is my guess that the little guys go into the crab and lobster traps for the bait rather than the catch. Trapper (my original Merc) was caught in a stone crab trap and I remember Nancy posting a note about a biologist that fed octos chicken necks. Just an anicdotal theory of course.

**Colin** · Mar 04, '08, 1:54pm

one of my first octos was a briareus - she was a pentapus ;)

**Paradox** · Mar 04, '08, 2:32pm

I think the majority of the octopuses Ive kept were missing an arm or two. But they were obviously lost from an injury.

**monty** · Mar 04, '08, 3:19pm

My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

**Animal Mother** · Mar 04, '08, 5:30pm

Here's the pics I was talking about.

10 armed briareus

birth defect 2 tips on one arm

**DWhatley** · Mar 04, '08, 9:58pm

Another good subject for our post-docs. Maybe it could be combined with nutrition

. I remember Kat posting some kind of birth defects in the squid she was collecting for her thesis.

**bigGdelta** · Mar 05, '08, 2:08am

Did anyone else think about that Ray Harryhausen movie where the six legged octo attacks SF when they saw this?

**Danno** · Mar 05, '08, 6:27am

Just because you are 2 arms short doesn't make you less of a Pus.

**Cairnos** · Mar 05, '08, 8:05pm

Originally Posted by dwhatley

Clem,
It is my guess that the little guys go into the crab and lobster traps for the bait rather than the catch. Trapper (my original Merc) was caught in a stone crab trap and I remember Nancy posting a note about a biologist that fed octos chicken necks. Just an anicdotal theory of course.

Nope they're after the rock lobsters. Octos are a common bycatch in the Rock Lobster fishery in New Zealand and the fishers

HATE

them as what they pull up looks promising until they see the octopus and realise that all the lobsters will just be shells. In the year 01/10/06-30/09/07 approximately fifty three and a half tonnes of octos were pulled up by fishers who were targetting rock lobsters.

On an unrelated note I recently saw a photo of an antarctic octopus that appeared to have only seven arms. It didn't look damaged although it's possible one of them could have been tucked underneath but the way it had been placed for the photo makes me think that wouldn't be the case

**octobot** · Mar 08, '08, 6:19am

Six-Legged Octopus Discovered at English Aquarium
FOXNews - Mar 4, 2008
That's what zookeepers at the Blackpool Sea Life Centre in northern England call their six-legged octopus, who was fished out of the Irish Sea off Wales ...

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Welcome for octopus with six legs
Fish Update, UK - Mar 6, 2008
... Duckhouse said: "We've scoured the internet and talked to lots of other aquariums and no-one has ever heard of another case of a six-legged octopus. ...
"Free Henry" say animal campaigners Blackpool Gazette
BREAKING NEWS - Free Henry the Hexapus! North Wales Chronicle
all 4 news articles

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CNN International
World's first six-legged octopus discovered
CNN International - Mar 4, 2008
By CNN's Saeed Ahmed (CNN) -- English marine experts have laid their hands on an octopus that's missing two of its own: a six-limbed creature that they have ...

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