squishy- abdopus ???

tat2spyder

Blue Ring
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Mar 23, 2011
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ordered her from live aquaria on sunday. they shipped her from california yesterday.and i picked her up from the fedex office at 8:30. when i got her to the shop and opened up the bag i was supprised at how small she was?her mantle is about the size of a grape, legs about 5 or 6 inces. i was expecting her to be a little bit bigger. but she is too cute. there was no ink in the bag so i started drip aclimating . she was instantly curius. walking around the bucket. she was a mottled brownish tan most of the time.
after an hour of dripping, i went to go put her in the tank. as i try reaching for her she balled up and turned dark brown almost black. it was so fast. and she looked just like a rock. too cool.
as soon as she got in the tank she swam down to the bottom and started looking around. i thought it was cool seeing you guys videos, but these things are AWESOME in person. she was changing her colors as she walked over different colored rocks. and as she was climbing on the back wall i got a great video of her flashing the "passing cloud" look. and i think i got some great pictures too.
so after she settled into the rock work and i was finally able to pull myself away. i gave her a couple hours alone with the lights out. at 12 i had an appointment so i had to open up the shop (tank is in the lobby of tattoo shop). after about 20 minutes of searching i was able to spot a little set of eyeballs poking over the rocks. i figured i should try to feed her while i could see her. so i grabbed a fiddler real quick and dangled it in front of her. after like 10 seconds an arm poked out of the rock. checking it out a little bit. then the fiddler sqwirmed, and squishy pounced on it. i let it go with the tweezers and squishy carried it back into the rockwork. i haven't seen her since. she is now alone in the shop again with all the lights out. hopefully she settles in pretty good so i can get some more pictures tomorrow.

sorry im a little long winded, but im super excited. i do have a couple questions
1-is this Abdopus aculeatus? or the smaller Abdopus species?
2-is it male or female? i dont see enlarged suckers, or curled 3rd leg. try to get a picture when she's on the glass
3-is 1 fiddler a day a good feading or should i do more or less?
 

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Awesome Welcome Little one.


is this Abdopus aculeatus? or the smaller Abdopus species?

Looks like Aculeatus too me.

is 1 fiddler a day a good feading or should i do more or less?

That is fine. D feeds hers six days a week, with one day to fast. Less is also ok I think every other day is fine as well.
can't upload video. it too big and i dont know how to resize a video

Videos need to be uploaded on Youtube or a site like it first, then they can be embedded here on TONMO.

is it male or female? i dont see enlarged suckers, or curled 3rd leg. try to get a picture when she's on the glass

I dont see any obvious signs one way or the other from the pictures.
 
heres the link for the video

Next time take that link, then click on the little film strip button at the top of the reply box. and paste it in the dialog box that pops up. then it will be embeded like it is now.

Very Cool! I really enjoy Aculeatus.
 
:welcome: Squishy
I believe Squishy is a little male or it has a damaged third right (clockwise orienting your eyes with the octopuses eyes) arm. Watch your video again with this in mind, then look at the third picture from the top and note the arm again.
 
after looking at the pictures closely and watching the videos again, i have noticed that he/she is holding the 3rd leg closer to her body more, and curls the tip in ot itslef. i don't know if this is from loosing part of the limb or if its proof hes a male. im uploading more videos on to youtube now, and im hoping i can get a shot of her/him on the glass. looking for enlarged suckers toward the beak right?
also. since everyone is agreeing that it's acleatus. acording to her size (mantle about the size of a grape) would you say this is a young octopus? how fast should i see it growing? is there a way to estimate age?
 
I was half kidding about the arm damage (though they will curl a tender arm sometimes and SueNami was a boy named sue because that arm was missing when he came and I assumed it would have been better protected - guessing a female was not interested though ). I am relatively sure Squishy is male. The extra curl of the tip (ligula) on the appropriate arm is definitely a common posture. Enlarged suckers, if any, are harder to identify because they get larger toward the body anyway and change visual size when stuck to the glass will be near the mouth but not the first few suckers on the arm. Usually they will be on arms L2/R2 but can be on other arms as well. I am not sure if the number of arms is diagnostic for a species though (but you will see it mentioned in descriptions) as I had a male O. mercators with them on all eight arms which is not common.

There are a number of identified and unidentified (per discussions with Mucktopus aka Dr. Huffard) animals in the abdopus genus and many are hard to distinguish. Typically we assume A. aculeatus but the sizes have varied quite a bit. With luck, this is a young one but enjoy it and hope for a little longevity. The last small one from LA lived 7 months, possibly a record for the forum for this genus.
 
hers a good pic of where he was hangin out all day yesterday, watching customers. this guy isn't shy at all. can u find him?
 

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got one of the videos to load. but the one of him eating, is kind big and im having a hard time getting it on youtube. but heres the one

you can see in this one he does keep his r3 curled up. so i guess its more than likely male.
 
here's some good videos i shot today. he's out and about curious already.

if you listen you can hear the tattoo machine in the backround

and another

and this one he says hes had enough fun for one day
 

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