Maya - O. hummelincki

**DWhatley** · Nov 06, '09, 10:41pm

Maya does not care for the eggs 24/7 but at intervals. Much of the day she will face forward and look out. She would even go on short hunting forays the first couple of days. I have not seen her leave the den in about 5 days. I do see her turn toward the eggs at different times and assume she is cleaning them.

Tonight I tried to use a flashlight to see if there were still eggs as it looked barren behind her. My first attempts showed nothing attached to the den walls where I originally photographed the eggs. She has not eaten anything offered but I have seen her poop daily. I have assumed she is eating the mysis (which she would pickup during her hunting) and Cyclop-eeze (detectable as red in the waste) but now wonder about egg consumption. After more searching, I did seen and shoot an illfocused video of her cleaning several strands of eggs. I am not sure how many eggs remain though as I think I should have seen many more attached to the left side of the den wall.

The out of focus disk you see on the left is a cheap magnifying glass (barely magnifies). I am looking for a stick on magnifier that might help see if there are spots on the eggs but so far I can't see in the den well enough to tell.

**DWhatley** · Nov 18, '09, 3:09am

With a couple of attempts using plastic magnifiers, I can get a small glimpse of the eggs from time to time. She keeps them pretty well hidden now where initially she would move an arm while I peeked in the den as if to let me see them. The eggs are tiny and my eyes have a hard time seeing detail for the short intervals I get but I don't see any spots on the eggs and they are an opaque white, not the translucent white of eggs preparing to hatch so I fear they are not viable. It has been 3 weeks since she produced the eggs and it seems that there are very few left (I can see a small cluster she keeps aerating but not the huge mass in the picture and nothing attached to the rocks). I won't fully give up until she does but I will be surprised if any hatch.

I looked up Octavius and Serendipity (the only two other hummelincki broodings I could find) and noticed that Octavius brooded for 11 days (the same as the average vulgaris timing I found) but AM's Grover (Adopus, possibly aculeatus) brooded for 4 weeks so I have a little hope for another week but the missing eggs and opaqueness of the remaining ones is still discouraging.

One thing of note. Serendipity arrived Sept 7/08 and started brooding Oct 6/08. Maya arrived Sept 24/09 and started brooding Oct 27/09. It makes me wonder if one of two things is occuring. Either this is a typical brooding time for the species or there is something about my tank (different tanks) conditions that starts the brooding process. I am inclined to the later if Maya's eggs are not fertile and would shot gun the idea that it might involve temperature (because of something I recently learned about urchins spawning).

**Neogonodactylus** · Nov 18, '09, 10:06am

Two of our females laid eggs yesterday. Fortunately, one placed her eggs high on the glass front of the tank. We will be taking photos of the egg development every other day.

Roy

Originally Posted by dwhatley

With a couple of attempts using plastic magnifiers, I can get a small glimpse of the eggs from time to time. She keeps them pretty well hidden now where initially she would move an arm while I peeked in the den as if to let me see them. The eggs are tiny and my eyes have a hard time seeing detail for the short intervals I get but I don't see any spots on the eggs and they are an opaque white, not the translucent white of eggs preparing to hatch so I fear they are not viable. It has been 3 weeks since she produced the eggs and it seems that there are very few left (I can see a small cluster she keeps aerating but not the huge mass in the picture and nothing attached to the rocks). I won't fully give up until she does but I will be surprised if any hatch.

I looked up Octavius and Serendipity (the only two other hummelincki broodings I could find) and noticed that Octavius brooded for 11 days (the same as the average vulgaris timing I found) but AM's Grover (Adopus, possibly aculeatus) brooded for 4 weeks so I have a little hope for another week but the missing eggs and opaqueness of the remaining ones is still discouraging.

One thing of note. Serendipity arrived Sept 7/08 and started brooding Oct 6/08. Maya arrived Sept 24/09 and started brooding Oct 27/09. It makes me wonder if one of two things is occuring. Either this is a typical brooding time for the species or there is something about my tank (different tanks) conditions that starts the brooding process. I am inclined to the later if Maya's eggs are not fertile and would shot gun the idea that it might involve temperature (because of something I recently learned about urchins spawning).

**DWhatley** · Nov 18, '09, 4:53pm

Oh, please post some of the development stages!!! At least I could see what would have happened

. From the little I saw yesterday the ones that are left are still inflated but totally opaque and no spots. I don't think she would have moved them but is almost looks like those that I can glimpse are not attached to substrate. The normal album section has still not joined the new forum so could you put them in the Raising Octopus from Eggs sub-forum (forum->Octopus Care->Raising Octopus from Eggs)?

**Neogonodactylus** · Nov 18, '09, 6:38pm

These were taken the day they were laid. I will try to follow their development over the next month until they hatch.

Roy

**DWhatley** · Nov 19, '09, 12:03am

Roy,
Do the eggs look round to the naked eye? Maya's definitely look/looked round and not oval. Also, hers are totally opaque.

**Neogonodactylus** · Nov 19, '09, 11:07am

Nope. They are your basic two mm jelly bean. I don't know if these are fertile. The other female that laid this week mated in the lab, but if this one is carrying sperm, she got them before we received her.

Roy

**DWhatley** · Nov 19, '09, 2:12pm

I wish I had a better judgement of size on Maya's eggs. From my view and estimation, her's are half that size, totally opaque and definitely round from the viewing angle I have/had (she has really closed down the den now and I can barely see her and nothing behind her). This would suggest that the eggs are infertile (if the ones on the glass are fertile, then this might suggest a reason for the difference) or these are different species. I am sadly thinking the later (both, of course, could apply).

**DWhatley** · Nov 23, '09, 11:50pm

Maya is still with me and has not left her den. She keeps the inside tightly covered from view now but based upon the last chance I did get to look inside, most of the eggs are gone. I keep expecting her to exit any time (I have given up on any hope on any viable eggs) but she stays firmly routed with one eye peering out. Serendipity never came back out of her underground den and just disappeared but Beldar and Trapper both wandered the tank for awhile (Trapper for 11 more weeks and would eat Cyclopeeze) before dying so I am hoping to have a least a last week with her.

**DWhatley** · Dec 03, '09, 1:30am

Brooding - 5 weeks

I am pretty sure the eggs are all gone now. I never saw any hatchlings but the few times I could see into the den, the numbers seemed to decline and for over a week I have not seen any (she keeps the den heavily blocked with her arms now but when I see her gill openings, there are no eggs). I did not change the filter or clean the tank last week and when I did so today, I found a gooey, jelly substance on the bag of charcoal and on the outside of the filter sock as if it had oozed through. I think this is egg material and hopefully was not living young that all went through the overflow during the night. So sad.

I have tried and tried to get her to eat but she totally refuses. I put a tiny live crab in with her yesterday and this morning the rock it was on (the decorators don't move around much) along with several other of her den door materials were pushed a good 10 inches away from her den. I don't think she could have moved them this far away without leaving the den but we have not seen her out since the day or two after she put the eggs on the wall. In the last two days she has changed position so that her mouth is always pointing outwards. I tried putting a piece of shrimp with my fingers directly onto the suckers at the mouth. She grabbed my fingers with more strength than I would have expected but still refused the shrimp no matter how insistent I was. After she decided my fingers were not a danger, she just ignored me and pushed the shrimp away repeatedly once I removed my hand from the tank.

I also noticed that the starfish keep approaching her den. She picks them up easily and throws them out but I suspect they know the end is near. The serpents, however, are not pestering her at all.

**Neogonodactylus** · Dec 03, '09, 10:50am

These are day 15. Eyespots are well developed.

**DWhatley** · Dec 08, '09, 2:12am

Maya still has not left her den but the eggs are definitely gone as I can now see the strands where they were attached. I hope the goo I found in the filter bag was egg and not octo but I will never know. It deterorated while sitting in a bucket and produced a vile smell so it worries me that ther may have been live young that went through the overflow directly after hatching.

Maya is not ready to give up yet and is still defending her den successfully but the starfish has been continuously approaching for the last couple of days. I am not sure what it is detecting since her flesh seems firm but it is unusual for it to pester her. I have a short video I will put up on YouTube but here are a series of photos.

**Neogonodactylus** · Dec 08, '09, 10:32am

Our first female to lay produced infertile eggs. They began to disappear at around day 10 and by day 15 were all gone. I assume she was picking them off. Day 16 she moved off the egg site. She is now about half her size when she laid. The end is near.

On the other hand, the second female to lay has developing larvae that now have active chromatophores (day 19). I'll post a picture later. Of all the female octopus I have had lay eggs, this female's defense of her brood is by far the most fierce. When I try to use a large pair of forceps to take a few developing eggs to photograph, she initially gathers the eggs under her and directs the mouth at the forceps assuming the typical aggressive posture with the first pair of arms folded back over her head. When I persisted, she attacked coming about a body length off the eggs, grabbing the forceps and repeatedly biting. You could literally hear the beak striking the metal forceps. She also made a couple of grabs for my hand, but fortunately I got out of the way in time. This behavior was interspersed with her shooting jets of water at me. All in all, a most impressive performance.

Roy

**Neogonodactylus** · Dec 08, '09, 10:40am

Here are a few eggs from the O. filosis brood at day 19. The chromatophores are functional.

**DWhatley** · Dec 08, '09, 9:58pm

The behavior matches Maya's as well as the timing on the infertile eggs (when I first noticed I could not see them) so I feel better that it is unlikely they all went live to the overflow. The stalks are bare but she will not come out and maintains the guarding post. She looks good and can still color (evidenced by her short attacks on anything coming in front of her den, including occassion quick attacks when she sees my magnifying lens outside the tank). Her breathing is heavy though and I have added an air stone near her den to encourage the CO2 out more rapidly in her immediate area. I am not sure the idea has a lot of merit but it hurts nothing and I feel like I am trying to do something to make her more comfortable (ie the crude attempt is more likely to make ME feel better than anything it does for her).

I "let" (as in she grabbed and I just left my hand there) her grab my hand once while I was cleaning the tank in front of her den. She grabbed fiercely but did not bite so I wonder it is the fact that you were obviously going for the eggs or that the object was hard (vs a soft hand) that brought about the biting. I am glad she did not try to bite after reading your description though.

I am assuming the infertile eggs were the ones on the glass and the in-tank mating produced the fertile ones since you said you had to go past her to retrieve the ones you photographed but please do qualify. It is interesting that they seem to lay eggs so quickly when placed in an aquarium even if they have not mated. I have wondered if the environment somehow queues the egg release or if it is just the stress. Both Maya and Serendipity were very small (compared to my two males) and should have (I think) grown much larger before brooding.

Roy, on another note. You (and James and Crissy) still use the term filosis and I have read varying reasons for keeping or disguarding the name. I know you use mercatoris even though they were originally classified joubini and that there are two distinct octos in this case but only one in the hummelincki/filosis naming and that the older name was dropped because of a very poor written description that was thown out without reading the backup information. Sooo which name should we be using and briefly (unless I can get you to pontificate), why?

**Neogonodactylus** · Dec 10, '09, 11:47am

I poked around trying to find a revision that would change the name to hummelincki from filosis, but could not find anything definitive. As far as I can tell, filosis has precedence, so I will use it until I see that there is a formal revision. The mercatoris mess is easier. The type O. joubini is a small egg species and O. mercatoris was described as large egged species. They aren't easy to tell apart from preserved specimens (without eggs), but live material is obvious. However, there is at least one other similar species (Belize) that remains to be named.

Roy

**DWhatley** · Dec 24, '09, 1:51am

Maya died on Dec 21 (I think

). I had hoped she would spend her last week out in the tank (as some of my females have done) but she did not come out even after the eggs were long gone except on her last day. I found her on top of the LR barely alive and placed her in a breeder net to die unmolested. The night before, I noticed that her arms were swollen as if she was retaining water so I suspect her main heart had stopped functioning even though it appeared the two gill hearts were active (or at least the gills were both moving). She had retained color and ability to pattern up until the day I saw the swelling and showed nothing but dead grey coloration on the last day. When her gills had stopped moving and she stopped reacting, I put her in formalin and the chromataphores triggered a complete brown color slowly over her body (no movement as if I had not waited long enough though).

She had appeared so healthy (but weak) all during the time she guarded the den, I was really hoping she would live on for awhile. I am thinking she went into brooding prematurely and still puzzle over what may trigger this in a captive environment and how we might delay it.

Roy, Mucktopus, Steve, biology majors...

The swelling brought up a major question about hydration. It is my understanding that all marine animals need fresh water for hydration and that most (if not all) get it from the food they eat. A brooding octopus ceases eating so how it is that they don't rapidly dehydrate?

**sedna** · Dec 24, '09, 10:16am

Sorry, D. It's so hard to watch them die, knowing it's coming doesn't make it easier. Thanks for the great journal, though. Roy, I hope you continue to post entries and pics of your octo eggs and their development. Thanks to both of you for such interesting stuff!

**CaptFish** · Dec 24, '09, 12:09pm

So sorry to hear, I dread the day I have to go through the same, but I guess thats the price of the coolest creature on the planet.

**DWhatley** · Jan 04, '10, 2:56am

I don't remember if Maya was still breathing when I took this or not but I am posting it to show the odd swelling that I noticed in her arms just before she died. Note that the arms have wrinkles. I am wondering if this is a sign of heart failure and thus water retention from poor circulation, similar to problems humans have when the heart no longer pumps well.