Inkler - O'Briareus

[corw314]

Inkler is averaging a crab every 3 days. She lets me know she's ready by coming to the front of her cave to sit in the opening. I am schooling my son on how to feed her as our trip to Costa Rico is coming very fast. We leave Wed, hopefully....... I am very pleased at how well Inkler is adapting to her new home.

 

[Nancy]

Inkler is so small! And of course, a cute little octopus. Hope you still have power during this big storm.

Nancy

 

[corw314]

Inkler was out this morning right in the front of the tank. Her new den is a big shell I have in the front of the tank. She grabbed my fingers as I tried to feed her a crab and missed the crab. She loves to get a hold of my hand but I am cautious about letting her get her beak too close to my fingers. I have found also if you touch their legs they release their hold. I love these new shots I got of her!!

 

[Lmecher]

Great shots, she is adorable. Acccoring to "D" and from my own observations they are near-sighted. Your physical contact is really rare with such a young one, good job.
Can I ask, what is the blue thing in the first photo? Almost looks like a coral.

 

[DWhatley]

I have also seen that touching the back of the arm works well to get them to release you if they are not afraid. The only time I have had this NOT work was when I was trying to get OhToo up off the substrate and into a net in his last days. Not only was he dieing but he was long accustomed to my touch and I could not get him to understand that I was putting him in a safe place, off the bottom. Sedna also had it fail when trying to release a new octo to the tank.

I recently read a terrific booklet (on-line) written by the curator of an aquarium in 1875. He claimes that encircling the "throat" (one assumes this is just below the eyes) and applying pressure will get them to release you without harm to the octo. He felt that this should be well published should someone become entangle with one underwater.

 

[corw314]

The blue thing is a piece of blue glass. I used to have dusky jawfish that would use these as part of the decorations for their den. Tonight, she grabbed me again. Is it normal for their pupils to be so large? Is this because generally they are a nocturnal octopus? It was kind of funny, I was leaving to take Jess to the dollar store and stopped to look at the tank. I could not see her in her den, because she was sitting in the front of the tank watching me. I got her a crab and she again grabbed my hand along with the crab!

 

[DWhatley]

Finger grabbing is quite normal and I have attributed it partially to their apparent far sightedness. Wide open eyes in daylight is the opposite of what I have seen, however. I don't think I have a single picture with that much pupil showing, even in the diurnals, during daylight hours. It will be interesting to see if it continues and if this one is more prone to diurnal behavior. Since Legs is often out during the day, I hope CaptFish will compare the eyes in current and especially young Leg's photos to see if we should be looking at this feature.

I did notice (and Nancy commented about seeing a similar thing with Ollie) when Maya was laying eggs, her eyes would open VERY wide during the process as if depositing the eggs was a strain that caused an odd reaction so there may be other interesting things about the eyes we miss.

 

[CaptFish]

I have never seen Legs pupils that big she always has the typical half closed look like my avatar

 

[corw314]

Ya know looking at the previous photos, her pupils were much smaller. I wonder why the difference? Could it be because she had a crab and was biting it? This was taken before I fed her but I see her pupil was the same.

 

[DWhatley]

I will see large pupil when they are in the den and I shine a light in or out at night, just not out in the daylight. I would not think too much about it except for the egg laying eye changes (very, very noticable - wish I have videoed it but I did not realize what was going on until too late). I have also seen them close their eyes while being petted (like an Iguana) or when I stroke the outside of the tank. I have wondered aloud on TONMO about the outside of the tank observation in a thought that narrowing the eye might be like our squinting and wondered if they were looking at details rather than trying to close their eyes. It will be interesting to try to observe the eye aperture more often to see if anything is notable or just wishful conjecture.

 

[corw314]

I think my worry with this is my avator was one of my octopuses who had the large pupil and passed away the day after I took this shot. She is now starting to come out of her den when I tap on the glass. Last night I started to tap and she came out of her den really quickly. I was happy to see her eyes were normal looking.She maybe graduating to two fiddlers at a feeding as she seemed to be looking for more food even though she ate the night before.

 

[corw314]

And one more....she did take another crab this morning!

 

[DWhatley]

Sounds like you may have another "Legs" like piglet in the making It is a good thing spring is not too far off so you don't freeze on your collection runs.

 

[CaptFish]

Sounds like you may have another "Legs" like piglet in the making It is a good thing spring is not too far off so you don't freeze on your collection runs.

i hope not for sake of your wallet. Darn Piggy-pus is eating me under the table. THey raised the price of shrimp after the cold snap to $2per doz. !

 

[DWhatley]

THey raised the price of shrimp after the cold snap to $2per doz.

Oh quit the fake whining, you are making my wallet hurt I wish I could find a decent way to get some live up here every 2 or three months. I beg my sister (Tampa) to send someone to the bait store and then to FedEx and ship them but I get ignored.