[Octopus]: Intro Casper - O. vulgaris

[DWhatley]

I just finished Peter Godfrey-Smith's new book, Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness and really enjoyed a late chapter where he discusses inner-speech. For sometime now I have mentioned my idea that octopus coloration does mean something but maybe it is individual to each animal. Since they only rarely live in groups and cannot see the colors they display, it would be difficult for them to create a common language but what if their many nerves display something as they "think" so that a particular pattern becomes relevant to that animal but not others. A bit of my own crazy thinking and I don't know how you would go about testing it

 

[sirreal]

Thanks for the info D. I will read it. I def see colors for actions or moods but are they the same between one octo to another is hard to say. I am hoping to keep many vulgaris now that they are back. "One at a time" A guy I met who is a crabber said late in the season there were a lot of larger "not blue" octos this year and at least 3 times more then in the last decade. To me this is great news. To the stone crabbers its not but I still wonder where they went after the oil spill. Did they go south? did they go deep? Did they die off and are making a comeback?
I purchased a camera system to try and stream casper. I am not a great computer tech but I am going to try and get it up this weekend.

 

[DWhatley]

LOL, new cameras and cephs seem to go hand in hand, sort of one hobby begets another.
Delighted to hear that you are getting reports from the fishing community that they are seeing more diversity in the attacking ceph population. It would be nice if they could make a little money from the pet trade to help compensate for the loss and not just cut them up for bait. If we look at TONMO history (so nothing scientific, just passing anecdotal observations) the vulgaris actually disappeared long before the oil spill. Ten years ago they stopped being common around Tampa. After the extreme cold in 2010, we stopped seeing many mercs. There is a new (2016) paper that states that the quantity of cephs is increasing (I balked at this because of the reports from Argentina but suspect overfishing may be their problem). Here is a summary of the article that includes a link to the paper.

 

[sirreal]

D. I have noticed something kind of strange and maybe its common but I have not noticed it with my first Vulgaris. So when feeding live shrimp Or even dead frozen uncleaned Casper eats the shells!!! Unless she has some stash of shells some place I cant see. When she eats crabs she leaves the 2 body shell out for me to remove but with shrimp there is never any shells left.
I went collecting today and got a few 2-3" stone crabs, A bunch of 1" green crabs "May be emeralds" and 3 mantis shrimp. I removed the hammers from the mantis and Casper went right after them. This all happened about 15min ago so I will be watching for shells since this is the first mantis shrimps I have given her. I also put the little grabs in her tank but the stones I put in my holding and removed there claws. I also stopped and got 2 dozen live med sized shrimp. I bet by next weekend I am out of food, She eats a lot. Most of the time I get selects which are close too 4" shrimps and she eats 4 per day. I am amazed at how fast and big she is growing.

 

[DWhatley]

What a piggy! If it was nervous eating, eating odd things and excessively is not strange but she has been in the tank (and not leaving half uneaten food) way too long for this to be the case. LittleBit ate more than any other octo I have kept but not as much as Casper by half. She also stayed small for her species, something I don't expect from Casper .

I have never seen an octopus eat shells. I have offered shell on shrimp in case they needed something from it in their diet (this is thought to be the case with nautilus but the two I had ignored lobster and crab shell sheds and I believe @gjbarord has had a similar experience. The thinking -- from an in situ observation -- related to creating the outer shell so not relevant to octopuses). Ultimately, I shelled the shrimp to minimize clean up.

What I have observed and sadly never videoed (may have already mentioned this ) was one of the octos deveining shrimp before she/he ate it. Since this was only ever observed in one animal, I have wondered if pollution (particularly oil) in its home territory played a part in the behavior.

 

[sirreal]

Very interesting. With all the octos I have kept I always shelled them because of cleanup 2. I didnt notice this right away and most of caspers diet is shrimp yet I have never had to remove any shrimp shells. "would not be easy to do anyways because Casper really doesnt like me or anything in her tank. I swear she is growing everyday. I know she is growing but I have never seen one grow at this rate. Even my first vulgaris only got maybe 6"s bigger then Casper and I had that one for about 14 months and was much larger then Casper was when I got her.
I do believe this tank is not going to be big enough for her in 6 months. thinking that I have only had her since oct 10 and the massive increase in size. Guessing about her age when I got her I would think she was about 3-4 months old. I admit I dont know how fast they grow in the first few months but even if she was 6 months old and she has grown this much in just over 3 months is crazy.
I have not done any research about this but for some reason I thought octos kept growing until Senescence. Am I wrong thinking this? I know every octo is different.
To put the growth into perspective the 1st pic I posted was in a 8g cube which measures 12"x12". The tank she is in now is 32"x32" I really dont think the pics show the size. Also I have a pic I am going to post of the day she was found that I never posted. Date stamped oct 10.

 

[DWhatley]

Octos are expected to grow throughout their lives, however, the rate of growth changes drastically. Somewhere (unfortunately, a brief look did not turn it up) there is a paper with a chart of observed growth rates over their lifetime.

 

[sirreal]

 

[sirreal]

This is the day I got her. Just over 3 months ago

 

[sirreal]

Thank you so much D. No rush but if you come across that paper I would love to see it.

 

[sirreal]

I found this one and am reading it now
http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/_pdf/2004OctopusGrowth.pdf

 

[DWhatley]

I saw that article and started to link it but the one I was (unsuccessful even in a longer review) looking for I am pretty sure I linked here somewhere. If memory serves me well (:old) it gave a better chart for the extreme growth up to sexual maturity and then the slower growth of an adult. I remember thinking that O. briareus did not seem to grow as fast as the chart let me to believe. This article suggests that if you can cool the tank down a bit (say with a fan over the sump so only a couple of degrees), she may not grow as fast or as large and it might prolong her life a bit as well.

 

[sirreal]

ok D. Thanks for everything. Your help is always the best

 

[sirreal]

So one the topic of eating shells. She does eat shrimp shells. She does not eat crab shells. I had put about 12. 1" green crabs in her tank and 1. 2" stone crab in there. It was funny how she gathered them all up in her den and then about 3 hours later she came out and threw them all in one spot like she was house cleaning. I got them all out and the next day I put 4 good size shrimp and again no shells anywhere!! Last night same thing 4 shrimp and not waist. Also I put a conch "about the size of a golf ball" that we found when we were out crabbing last weekend in the tank. It was doing a great job going through the sand and left clean sand behind it. I was happy that the next day it was still there. "Then again she had a lot of crabs" Well the next night an empty conch shell. My god she is a pig!! LOL. So I ended up working all weekend so I could not get the streaming cam up and running yet. The first day I have off I am going to do this so others can see what I see. Also since I cant be there for 11 to 16 hours per day at least I can watch her on my phone. Also this weekend I will go looking for crabs and snails. I wonder if the snails are good for her? Stone crabs are hard to find.

 

[Jocco]

What a fun ceph! And such a pig, haha. Eating you out of house and home. We sunk some gerbil tube for our ceph with minimal play.
Maybe yours will enjoy. Certainly made for fun photos.

I wonder how they react to the colorform stickers for windows on the tank.

I'm excited for your video camera! Before we knew it, our ceph passed and we didn't pick one up. Maybe next time.