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Mimic Octopus at local store

The west coast dealers call any red and white banded octopus a mimic...so god only knows what they actually are...
 
I know the mimic has "horn-like" structures on top of its eyes to fool crabs into coming closer to attack the "rival" and get eaten. Pretty small if I remember correctly too...
 
Well, I went to the pet store this evening with my wife to see the Mimic and to my amazment it had been sold already. Didn't even last for 2 days and someone dished out $400 and grabbed it. Now I guess I will never know for sure if it really was a Mimic or not. I told a saleperson their that I had some reservations as to whether it was really a Mimic or not and they said that they had put it in a tank by the Lion Fish (there are quite a few in the tank) and that it was mimicing the Lionfish. I know on the show I saw it mimiced a Lion Fish, Sea Snake, and a Flounder. The person I talked with was a reptile person and not a fish person so he didn't know much about them but claims to have seen this happen. Who know's? I still have my doubts but I guess anything is possible. Guess I'll never know for sure.

Kirk
 
Hi Kirk

the lionfish story sounds a bit dubious to me... i have still to be satisfied that it is actually mimicing anything.... people see what they want to see. however, i have knocked back buying these species several times now so i guess i'll never see for myself.

$400!!!!!
 
I wouldn't believe the story that person said, honestly. If a LFS gets in a $400 specimen, the last thing they're going to do is throw it in a tank with a lionfish and risk stressing it. That just doesn't make good sense..

And as far as it being a mimic, I think I would agree with everyone else -- it would probably catch a much higher price than $400! Think about this special where the people looked for such a long time to find one -- it sounds like if you were a professional collector you wouldn't even be able to capture one for under $400 of resources/time, let alone ship it and then mark it up in an LFS for profit. It just doesn't jive for me

I will need to learn more about this 'wonderpus' though, sounds interesting and much less rare/endangered?

Robert :cyclops:
 
Andy had some pics and info up on a thread "my wonderpus"...neat looking octo.
 
RCL-I agree with you about the price but you misread my post a little. They didn't put it IN the tank with the lionfish, they put it in a tank NEXT TO the lionfish. So they say.

Colin-They definetly do mimic lionfish, sea snakes, and flounder and crabs. I saw that for myself on the special on tv. And it really did look like a lionfish, seasnake,flounder and crab when it mimiced them. It was a very amazing thing to watch. Whether it actually did so in the pet store is another story.

Kirk
 
Just....in my opinion, I think ANY living thing should be PRICELESS.
They say humans are "you are priceless", well so should the living things on this earth be too, not just us. Im surprised octopuses are basically soled for only freaken 20 buX. wow. It's just like going to the store and buying a human being for 20 bux. hey...were animals too. I just dont see why animals are treatest un-equal to humans, mabye our lives ARE more precious than theres simply cuz we have control over them and we have the intelligence.

But anyways...that's my opinion. And yes a mimic Octopus is extrememly, extrememly rare. Very beautiful, beautiful animals.
 
The mimic octopus is extremely rare. They live in indonesia, and are most "commonly" found in silty sand-flats. The mimic is called a mimic because it does just that. Though, the lionfish act doesn't look like much of anything to me. The most convincing act in my opinion is the flounder. I have come to belive that specific mimicry varies in individuals-as I have seen clips of two variations of the jellyfish act, for example-but I have no substatial proof myself. :roll: I am but a poor, strange little 13 year old...who is broke...and rather restricted in ceph interations...and broke...did I mention broke? :P A mimic octopus would be very difficult to catch over on this side of the puddle... :wink: Anyone on this board wouldn't be able to catch em where they are-the locals to where the mimic octopus resides speak a different language! :lol:
 
Yes, only if you go to Indonesia could you attempt to catch one. Certainly not here in the states. Around here in the Tampa area all you see are normal looking octopus. By that I mean not like Zebra's or Wunderpus or anything that has much color or variation to it. Just your normal octopus as most people think of as normal. And our water quality isn't that great around here anymore either. Not like Hawaii or Indonesia so unless you are in south Florida like say the Keys where the water quality is clearer then it is hard to catch your own. Unless you go out deeper with scuba gear.

However, here is something that happened to me about 10 years ago. I was snorkling in some very clear water at the time around south St.Pete at a park and I was collecting empty Olive shells. They are a small, aprox. 2" round shell with a nice pattern on them. I was putting some in my tank and some in a clear base lamp I was making. I had them laying out and low and behold after some time 3 different shells had very small octopus come out of them. I put the 3 of them in a 20 gal. tank to watch. I got some small hermits from the beach and they gobbled them down. They didn't fight or anything but the strang thing was, and I don't know how common this is, but one of them had like electricial currents that ran up and down its legs and body. It looked like it was plugged in. Like the electric flame scallop does if you have ever seen one of them. Is this common in octopus? The other 2 didn't show any signs of this. I kept them for a week and then because I wasn't set up to really keep them I took them back to the bay and let them go. They were very small. The mantle probably wasn"t over 1".

I was just wondering if anyone else's octopus display this electriciy in its body like that. It was an awsome thing to see.

Kirk
 
I don't know about octos doing this but cuttles certainly do, theres a video of mine in the video gallery where it seems to be doing nothing, was this what you meant? Strange, normally octo's won't co-exist and turn cannibalistic, maybe there was surplus food and they were still small.
 

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