BORA - A. aculeatus

blljzy912

Cuttlefish
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Feb 22, 2011
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hey tonmo this is Bora ive had her for almost three months and am just getting around to posting here. her mantel is about 2 inches and her tentacles are around 8 inches. when i got her she only had five tentacles, so i thought she was going to pass pretty soon but next thing i know i start to see little baby tentacles growing and now there about 4 inches. but anyways i was wondering if anyone can help me identify her species. thank you!
ps. sorry for the crappy iphone pics
 

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Unfortunately, the photos are not a lot of help. The mantle:arm length ratio and little that shows on coloration is on target for one of the Abdopus species. Where did you acquire Bora and do you know her original body of water? In the three months you have had her, have you seen major, minor on almost no difference in mantle and arm length (this would say more about age than species)?
 
DWhatley;186296 said:
Unfortunately, the photos are not a lot of help. The mantle:arm length ratio and little that shows on coloration is on target for one of the Abdopus species. Where did you acquire Bora and do you know her original body of water? In the three months you have had her, have you seen major, minor on almost no difference in mantle and arm length (this would say more about age than species)?

Ill try to get some more pictures but her arms have grown probly 2 inches but the 3 arms that grew back are about 4 inches and they grew in a month but I got bora from tongs in Whittier and they didn't know we're she came from that just said a tropical octopus but when she's playful she gets like a yellow tan and when she eats or gets spooked she turns a dark brown and gets spiky
 
Cuddlycuttlefsh;186312 said:
The third picture reminds me of Little bit though because of the coloration but I'd agree with D about the mantle to arm ratio.

Yea I'm gonna try to get some better pictures or her mantle to arm ratio
 
Definitely not the same as LittleBit but, given your location, description and what little we can see from the photos, I am sticking with one in the abdopus complex and if she is day active probably aculeatus. Look at the "List of Oour Octopuses 20xxx" thread that are stuck to the top of the Octopus Care forum and click on some of the A.aculeatus threads for photos to see if the match is close (in addition to more photos of course, we LIKE photos :wink:)
 
DWhatley;186333 said:
Definitely not the same as LittleBit but, given your location, description and what little we can see from the photos, I am sticking with one in the abdopus complex and if she is day active probably aculeatus. Look at the "List of Oour Octopuses 20xxx" thread that are stuck to the top of the Octopus Care forum and click on some of the A.aculeatus threads for photos to see if the match is close (in addition to more photos of course, we LIKE photos :wink:)

Thanks for all the help but she is out all day everyday and sometimes at night. She is out way more then in I think I got lucky with her. But I will look at the previous years of octopuses and I will see what I can match her with. If I capture any better pictures I will defiantly be posting them
 
i was looking in all the past years of octo lists and you were right Dwhatley she looks like a A.aculeatus from here mantel to arm ratio and her color patterns. i think you were right on with her species for sure. but here are some pics i took this morning
 

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You should often see little horns sticking up from the eyes and a star like pattern around the eyes. Many show the star pattern and I think I see it in the top photo of your recent post. Like all octopuses, patterns change and you don't see them all the time but some patterns are more typical by specific species. The daytime activity would help suggest aculeatus within the abdopus complex.

I hope you will continue journaling Bora and I would like to move your ID thread to the journals section now that we have a good guess. Let me know if this is acceptable and I will retitle it and watch your experience :biggrin2:
 
DWhatley;186354 said:
You should often see little horns sticking up from the eyes and a star like pattern around the eyes. Many show the star pattern and I think I see it in the top photo of your recent post. Like all octopuses, patterns change and you don't see them all the time but some patterns are more typical by specific species. The daytime activity would help suggest aculeatus within the abdopus complex.

I hope you will continue journaling Bora and I would like to move your ID thread to the journals section now that we have a good guess. Let me know if this is acceptable and I will retitle it and watch your experience :biggrin2:

I would be more then happy if you would make it into a journal but she always gets the horns right ontop of her eyes and most of the time she has gold around her eyes but I am actually kinda worried about her because last weekend I was moving a couple mushrooms around and she was swimming around my hand and just being curious as always but then in a snap of a finger she climbed out of the tank and slid down the glass and I coughs her in my hand right at the top of the stand. Once I put her back in she instantly inked but it was very thin so I imidiatly changed out my carbon and started skimming high but after that it seems like she is scared of every crab I try to give her, she will grab it and let it go right when she comes in contact with it. Has anyone been through this befor and if so does it just take time for them to get used to things again. If any suggestions lets know thanks again
 
Fortunately, we don't see a lot of escapes (partially because keepers secure their tanks well) but when we do, often tank size or water quality need examination. However, you can't discount curiosity if these two things are fine. Do watch for more adventure of this nature though as it seems once an attempt is made, it will unnerve the animal and then encourage it to try again.

You might try feeding her thawed table shrimp for a couple of days and then return to your crabs. We have seen fear of crabs from time to time but I know of no reason for it.
 
Well I've tried to feed her table shrimp and squid and scallops but she won't even think about it, just swims right past it but how long until I should get worried about her not eating. And I've noticed she always goes from one den to the other. She will dig out one the a couple weeks she will take shells and cover it up and go to her next one. She goes back and forth between these two dens is that a sign of anything
 
She may be about to brood as I think you suspect but want someone else to say it first. You may want to add a few small pieces of LR and shells for her to move about. If she is close to brooding, soon she will go into a den to lay her eggs. Generally, they eat quite heartily just before brooding and you should have noticed an increased appetite. Then they often stop eating but I have had some that would continue to eat. LittleBit (different species) ate until she died but near the end I had to offer very small pieces of food, rug it on her suckers and place them close to her beak. Sadly, this is typical of the time limits we see for the female of this species. It may well be that they are caught out and about because they are hunting more in prepartion to brood.
 
Yea I was suspecting here to stay laying eggs and I've been looking but there's no way ill be able to see them inside her den anyways but if she lays eggs and should I try to raise them in a breeder net but I saw her eating the smallest hermit crab I've gave her but won't touch the medium or large crabs
 
I always keep trying to feed them. It does not seem to matter, but I try. I have noticed that they seem to need smaller things once they are older and often wonder if there is a physical reason. This seems to apply to both male and female so I have discounted the idea that the eggs are related. A totally wild guess that I wish our budding biologists would examine is the possibility that the muscles that work the beak or radula start to atrophy. I have absolutely no biological reasoning behind this guess, just a hunch based on anticdotal observation. This quote:

Until recently, scientists wondered how they used this one hard organ without hurting the other soft organs. Recovered beaks are composed of hard chitin, but beaks on a living squid have been observed to be very different. The chitin shows a gradual shift from unbreakably hard at the tip to softer material where it attaches to the muscles of the mouth. This gradation is believed to be present in an octopus’ beak as well as squid.
might give some credence to my thinking though.

Look at the subcatetory Raising octopus from Eggs in this forum. You will find that this is a small egg species. We have been totally unsuccessful (along with many better equiped labs) in raising small egged animals. Many try and the contest becomes more the number of successful days rather than expecting a couple to survive. The small egg species hatch naturally as pelagic animals that spend a month or so feeding in the water column (the larger egg species are usually benthic and take to the substrate almost immediately - you will see these at night on the glass for about a week, then they go completely into the LR). Where the larger egg species look like their parents, the small egg species are more or less equivalent to permature animals. They naturally hatch this way and complete a development transformation during their pelagic time. If you have had experience or observations with seahorses, it is similar but the pelagic horses look more like their parents. I would encourage you to try but know that it has not been done with this species at all as far as I know (there has been some limited success with a tiny number of GPOs and vulgaris).

IME, once she goes into a den and does not come out, she will lay eggs within two days. I watched LittleBit very closely and disrupted her den to a degree daily since I knew her eggs would not be fertile. She was a different species but was also a small egg animal. I particularly wanted to remove all eggs ASAP because of something I read that indicated doing so might extend her active life. Initially removing the eggs did seem to encourage her to come out but only for a couple of days. She did eat the entire time, in small quantities near the end, but this is unusual.

In Bora's case there is a good chance the eggs are fertile (4 months is more or less the limiting time) and she will care for the eggs better than anything you can attempt. Hatch time will be between 10 days and 3 weeks.
 

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