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New member - mimic octopus - big mistake?

Last night I put his food in a mayonaise jar (obviously washed out) and did up the lid just tight enough so that it couldnt be knocked off & would have to be turned. This morning I checked & he had opened it. Im a very proud mum!
 
It's really nice to hear that he's progressing fine, and what lovely photos i might say.

The octo would have to feel threatened or mistake you for food if it were to bite. But normally if it's threatened it'll resort to a few other tactics first.
 
Your octopus can't bite you unless it's in a position where its beak makes contact with your skin. It's usually possible to avoid finding yourself in that position by keeping your hand above or to the side of the octopus.

They do sometimes give you a little nip out of curiosity, but you have to let them envelop your hand, for instance.

Nancy
 
Megas keeps trying that. Pull your hand in and then try to cover it with his whole body. KNEW he was trying to eat me.
grats on keeping that mimic going he looks kewl
spooky but kewl
 
Hi Scouse,

Not exactly to me, but to my husband Bill, who was fixing something in the tank. She was not very old - I had kept her about 3 months when this happened. Bill knew what she was doing - Colin told us about this behavior, so Bill decided to let her explore his hand and bite him if she wanted to.

She took a little nibble, waited, then another - and she never tried it again with either of us after that. While it was happening, Bill said "Nancy, Ollie is biting me!." I replied "Oh, no, she couldn't be biting you!". I was wrong, of course and took pics of the little bites afterwards. Here they are (so small you can barely see them - it's the little dot between the fingers).

We have learned a lot through these years on Tonmo - the current belief at the time was that bimacs never bit and never escaped. Both are untrue.

Nancy
 
Nancy said:
She took a little nibble, waited, then another - and she never tried it again with either of us after that. While it was happening, Bill said "Nancy, Ollie is biting me!." I replied "Oh, no, she couldn't be biting you!". I was wrong, of course and took pics of the little bites afterwards. Here they are (so small you can barely see them - it's the little dot between the fingers).

Well, acording to some canibal tribes, we taste like pork, so I would imagine that we would not be very apealing to any ceph. Once she got a taste, I'm sure her opinion became "fun to play with, but not very good eating" :wink:

-Jared
 
One more note on octo bites: I'd like to add that there is a risk of infection or allergic reaction with an octopus bite - I've never encountered anyone who suffered either of these outcomes from an octo bite, but both are possible and you need to be aware of it.

The amount of venom (and the pain from the bite) varies from species to species - we know it's not much in the case of a bimac. I'd be more cautious with lesser known species such as wunderpus or the mimic.

Nancy
 
The guy from the lfs did let the octo envelop his hand so I suppose he was at risk of being bit then. How do you handle it without this happening?

This is going to sound really stupid but I cant work out exactly where its beak is :oops:

Muctopus how on earth can u tell its female?
 
hi Nancy,

Thats quite mad thanks for sharing. Very couragous of Bill!! I suppose in light of him not being injected with venom it could be compared to a nasty bite from a budgy or cockatail thats broke the skin.

I think it was good to afford Ollie the opportunity to do this at a younger age as opposed to letting him grow large and then try it... :shock:


Big Red wrote :-
Muctopus how on earth can u tell its female?

I think its the stripy tights (pantyhose) that was the clue :lol:
 
A while ago I posted how to tell if your octopus is a male or female:

Arm length = octo sex?

That post was for a different kind of octopus- male wunderpus don't have enlarged suckers.

It's easy to sex wunderpus because the male's mating arm (hectocotylus) is so much shorter than the others (drawing of whole animal is wunderpus).

Also- you shouldn't have to worry about how to handle the wunderpus because you shouldn't handle them anyway. To do so can stress the animal so easily that you're putting her (not just yourself) at risk. Just use a dip net if for some reason you really need to move it.

Wunderpus lives on open sand plains (very few rocks, etc.). When your female crawls around, she's probably looking for an open (deep) patch of sand in which to dig a hole (and possibly lay eggs). If she doesn't find one, then she'll probably stress and keep pacing rather than go in a rock. I've seen one wunderpus (juvenile) hole up in a curved PVC tube, so that might be an option if you aren't able to put a sand bed in your tank.
 
Fantastic photos.

Pity this is such an endangered species. If these personality traits are common to most individuals of the species when in captivity, perhaps they could be captive bred and become a competitor to the Bimacs.

I can't stop looking at your photos. Some video would really be something.

It's too much to hope for but it would be great if it is a she and she mated just before being caught.....
 
Wunderpus lay small eggs, and the hatchlings have a (likely) 1-2 month planktonic phase. Although many people have put in years of effort and thousands of dollars trying to rear small-egged octopuses like O.vulgaris and O.cyanea, only a few people have been successful(Igleseas et al. Aquaculture International 12: 481–487, 2004.). One day it will be possible to culture wunderpus (but to be totally honest, bimacs make much better pets). In the meantime, if the female lays fertile eggs, sadly that generation will die a few days after hatching.

On a brighter note, you can find some short clips of wunderpus in the wild on:
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Socrates and Berkeley Scholars Web Hosting Services Have Been Retired | Web Platform Services
 

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