Octopus living in groups and more stuff

**jugglematt** · Nov 11, '10, 4:19am

**DWhatley** · Nov 11, '10, 4:27am

Matty,
The photo link is failing but after some messing around, I came up with these:

**jugglematt** · Nov 11, '10, 6:18am

thanks

**cuttlegirl** · Nov 11, '10, 9:54pm

Love the shot of the octopus waving its tentacle!

**pgs** · Nov 16, '10, 11:35pm

Hi Dwhatley,

Thanks for posting the link to the Harvard Gazette article. Matty's octopuses are pretty amazing.

PGS

**DWhatley** · Nov 16, '10, 11:51pm

Peter,
Now that you have joined us, perhaps you will find some of our captive animal journals interesting. I am trying to capture the arms trying to do something other than what the body is thinking kind of sequences and also trying an experiment with taiming the arms while interacting with the octopus. Since I have no control group and am not working on a consistent approach my hobby fun is only that and I am not sure thinking arms is an explanation but capturing the concept on film is a start in looking at it.

If you are planning to be in the DC area next October, we are looking for speakers

just sayin'

**jugglematt** · Aug 06, '11, 5:13am

Hi All
i thought i would share another pic taken at the occy site.
PGS another buddy of mine and i were diving there on saturday and saw this happen.
starting from the male leaving its hole , coloring up, heading over to the female , forming a tent over her and then making himself into the tripod he is in the pic , the 3rd arm can be seem mating with the female .
ive done quite a few dives with the occys and have never seen this behavior

Click image for larger version.

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comments anyone
Matty

**DWhatley** · Aug 06, '11, 3:26pm

I have only seen two species mate and those were in aquariums. One mating was the dwarf O. mercatoris and the animals were housed together (and were sibblings, living together from birth) so the mating was likely close to in situ. In this case the male covered the opening to the den effectively traping the female. Roy has observed much more violent matings with this species but the conditions were more like my second observation.

The other mating I have observed was between two O. briareus that were introduced for this purpose. In this case the male was very quick to secure the female from behind (preventing her from grabbing him) and stayed closely and tightly attached. When they separate, he was very quick to put as much distance as possible between the himself and the female. This species is "known" to be cannibalistic and the artificial environment observation would suggest this to be true, however,the female made not attempt to attack the male.

The photos Roy and Crissy have posted of abdopus mating in situ have been different again where the male may start out close but then stays at arm's length, sometimes being dragged around by the female as she seems to go about her business seemingly oblivious to the mating process.

None of the three appears similar to this positioning but it does suggest male guarding (something Roy mentions as a potential result of the male abdopus remaining attached to the female as she forages). The lack of attachment might suggest that at least this group are not cannibalistic (in addition to the fact that you see them living in a close community). It would be curious to know if this is a species trait or localized to the environment because of the quantity of food available. Does the male have enlarged suckers on any of its arms? The best guess for these enlarged suckers often on males is thought to be associated with securing the female during mating.

**tonmo** · Aug 06, '11, 9:23pm

Amazing pic! Tweeted it

**tonmo** · Oct 08, '11, 4:39pm

Discussing this thread at TONMOCON IV now :-) (pgs presentation)

**tonmo** · Oct 08, '11, 4:41pm

Sent via Tapatalk on Android

**jugglematt** · Oct 10, '11, 4:33am

cool
how did the conference go ?

**tonmo** · Oct 10, '11, 8:40am

It was excellent! Related to this thread, pgs walked us through what was discovered here and shared several photos, and provoked us with several unanswered questions while laying out some very interesting possibilities re: octopus behavior in this context.

Post-event info, pics, reviews, etc. can be found here.

OB · Oct 10, '11, 9:15am

One of my absolute favourite talks at the event!

**mucktopus** · Oct 10, '11, 3:40pm

Very cool pic. It's similar to what we called "stand tall" in aculeatus. I've never seen it used during mating but of course that was a different type of octopus. My guess too would be that this signals male presence/big size (= don't mess with me).

**DWhatley** · Oct 10, '11, 8:23pm

I believe Peter's talk was an all around favorite. We don't vote on best for good reasons but ...

I had planned on cornering him to talk about AU but never got the chance. He must like us a little 'cause he convinced is terrific wife to join so I am hoping we hear more about his discoveries and parallels.

**jugglematt** · Jan 18, '12, 4:03am

Hi Guys
long time no post
we have been visiting the site on and off over the past couple of months , i was lucky enough to have Peter down here for a few dives last week and we hope to get out again next Wednesday.
things are happening on the occy site , the mating i previously spoke about has resulted in a mother brooding eggs . very cool . the main rock at the center of the site now has 1 big occy and one smaller occy living in tunnels , the bigger occy has some battle scars on an arm.
on our last visit the smaller occy was very curious , he/she came out after a while climbed on my hand , played tug o war and draged my hand into his den.

were also using the Gopro cameras set up on timetapse , and are getting some good stuff. it allows us to drop a camera and come back a couple of hrs later , a great way to capture behavior

Regards
Matt

**haggs** · Jan 18, '12, 1:40pm

stop teasing us... wheres some of the photos??

**jugglematt** · Jan 20, '12, 1:44am

Click image for larger version.

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these guys were very playfull today , and they really liked my wide angle lense , i set my camera up on a 30sec lime lapse and got this shot when i went for a swim , at one stage these guys were actually fighting over my camera ,

Regards
Matt