ID request for my first pet octopus

[Shadow Mantis]

Hi Everyone

It's been a long time waiting, but I finally have a small octopus! I picked the little fellow up from my LFS, who wasn't even sure of its locale. Please let me know what you think it might be. I BELIEVE it might be a dwarf, such as a mercatoris. Its active coloration is a reddish brown while its resting pattern is a mottled pale color. It has spent quite some time creating a little burrow underneath a piece of my live rock. Altogether, it is about 3-3.5" across (including arm span). The mantle appears to be about an inch or so long. I hope this helps.

Thanks in Advance!

 

[DWhatley]

Picture #2 in particular will get my vote for merc. The two arms up boxing pose along with the eye horns and tiny pigtail are classic for them (but others will show it on occason). The mantle length looked extemely exaggerated when I first look at the photos but reviewing my own, I will stick with my guess.

There are a couple of photos on the Trapper's Babies thread for comparison but none of my merc shots came out well. My new camera has a white balance special feature that I am going to try in Creepy's tank (also red lit 24/7) to see if I can eliminate the red but the Minolta just had a hard time focusing any of the tanks, the Canon has an underwater feature that is ideal for aquariums (it works better than the special aquarium setting if you are using actinics).

 

[Shadow Mantis]

Thanks for your help! Mercatoris was my first guess as well!