need an ID!

sedna

Architeuthis
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All right, I've had him/her for a couple of days now and got a couple of shots good enough to post for an id. It seems bigger than Al (an aculeatus) but very similar in patterning and coloration. It was very shy at first but is warming up. I will start a journal after I get an ID and a name...
 

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Please tell me there is NO eyespot (it would be a black, maybe nickle size circle below each eye) on this beautiful octo! Is it day active? The eye markings and dots are making me worry that he will out grow your tank. There are others with eye starbursts and dots though. Have you seen it spread its webbing? If so does it go all the way down the arm when spread?
 
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It's tough to tell much about this one so far... He is active in the day, until we walk in the room. When I peek around the corner he's light colors, dancing around the glass and playing with the lego Divemaster Mike. Once we are spotted, he gets dark, patterns and hides. We got him curious last night by playing hide and seek, he was interactive in the early evening. His mantle is about 6 in give or take. While I was watching on Wed. he did that thing where he put up his front 2 arms, as in a guarding block (put up your dukes!), like in the photo Thales showed us, D. I don't think there are eyespots, still hard to tell. What else could be helpful for an ID?
 
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O.k., there is a reason people don't ask me to approx. size and distance... I got out a ruler and held it up to the tank, the mantle is more like 3-4 inches. I don't think the webbing extends all the way down the arm when it is spread. It totally does the skunk stripe thing on the mantle, and there are some "eyespots" on the mantle up above the siphon. There are some SMALLISH white spots above the arms, but nothing dramatic. I am going ahead and saying it is diurnal, just shy. As I mentioned before, when we walk into the room and it's alone, it is active on the glass and light grey. Right now it is watching me watch it, and is mimicing the live rock it is on. This one has the ability to look so much like the live rock that you can be staring straight at it and can't see it, but then maybe if Al hadn't been older he'd have done that, too. I can see that the tip of the first arm is blunt, maybe lost and grown back.
 
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If you enlarge the second picture of the octo on the rock, you can see the spots I mentioned. On the mantle above the eye, it is a lighter colored spot, and then above the arms there are smaller white spots ringed in black. Arms also seem generally thicker than Al's (my old aculeatus) but again this one is larger... and long, as I attempt to measure against the glass (it is out and visiting right now!) I get at least 10- 12 in.
 
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Nah, not cyanea. They're like a ginormous hummelincki.

The thing about those pictures is they look just like Grover poses to me, but the size... do any of the Abdopus group get that big?
 
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Well, here are a couple more shots, a little blurrier than I'd like. The one sure way to get this one to hide is to take pictures. This is the color it is while it is relaxed and exploring when it thinks it is alone. I didn't mean to mislead you with descriptions, there are small white spots above each arm, but not two specific "eyespots" UNDER the eyes. There are some spots on the mantle, where I would say are ABOVE the eyes or behind them. These spots are lighter in color and not ringed in any other color. It's little "horns" seem to start there. For the most part, it looks a lot like my last octo (Al, see journal) but bigger and more secretive. Maybe better at mimicing the live rock, too... I'm just about ready to move this discussion over to the journals section.
 

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