new octopus 2011

haggs

Vampyroteuthis
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Joined
Oct 4, 2008
Messages
384
Location
Coffs Harbour N.S.W.Australia
Well I‘m back in the water…. we have had a lot of rain and strong wind most of the last month but yesterday the tide was right and the weather was beautiful. So it was off to the Island to see “what” was around. I went to the usual “dens” and sure enough there was a new octopus in residence. Guessing by the arm length (7.5cm not stretched out) it’s a few months old.
Moving the camera in slowly I took a couple of pics from that distance so it would be a little used to the camera flash (which is on a low level to avoid frightening it). After a couple of shots like that I turn the flash up so that the pics are viewable. Over the next 20 minutes I managed to get it to reach out and touch my fingers. I then fed it a periwinkle before leaving it in peace.
 

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The next day I went back, but it wasn’t in the same den. I searched for about 10 minutes but no sign of it …… as I turned to get out of the water I noticed a bit of movement near my foot. YES … it’s still here. Another 20 minutes of photos and a little bit of video, I fed it a bit of mussel that I picked up from another rock pool and then left.
 

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The next day I couldn’t get back, so that brings me to yesterday. Same rock pool …. but no sign of life. I searched for half an hour. I had given up and decided to look for a couple of oyster type shells for one of my silver projects. I found 3 in a little pile and I thought that was too many to have just died and fallen there. Yup, right down under the ledge was the octopus. It looks to be the same one and it didn’t seem too worried when I reached in and touched it’s body. Several more photos later and another tidbit of food I let it in peace, still not knowing if it’s a male or female.
Maybe next time I will find out.
 

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:biggrin2::biggrin2::biggrin2::biggrin2:

How's the arm? I am sure you are not risking another injury by putting it in crevices that may contain interesting ceph eating critters like in the first photo. I am surprised our new little one is still OK with the moray there but maybe there are easier things to catch.

I am assuming you are NOT in the recent flood plain. We were trying to find out where all the damage was to see if you and Pam were OK.
 
The arms good now, the day after I got the all good from the hospital, I was back in there for another stint that was for my appendix and thats all good now. The floods are north of us, but we have had our fair share of rain for the year, just over 2.1 mtrs. The seas have come up again over night but I managed to get back there this afternoon for a couple of hours.

No sign of my new friend anywhere.... but I found another one about 80mtrs away. I don't think it would be the same one, although this "new one" didn't have any problems with me gettin up close to her. I'm saying "her" because of the 3rd arm not being curled up at all.
 

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Haggs,
I took the liberty of posting the videos you sent :wink:. Are they of the first or second octopus? Is that a piece of fish in the jar? Is the top screwed on?

I sure hope the moray did not have octopus for dinner.

Unlike a lot of software, VBulletin uses the URL to do its own embedding and will not accept the share or embed code provided by the video streamers. It is actually much simpler to do but not intuitive. For YouTube videos (and several others), play the video on Youtube and copy the URL in the address bar then come back to TONMO and click on the little film strip icon and pasted the URL into the pop up box. ... just in case you want to post up the other 4 :sagrin:
 
D, yes that was some fish in the plastic bottle, the lid was screwed on but only by a turn or two. She didn't get the top off and lost interest very quick, I think that she wasn't real hungry as there's no shortage of live food in this pool.

As for the morays eating the other octopus ... that was a different rock pool yet again, but I have seen them sharing that pool.

Now that you have mentioned the "other" clips I guess I will have to post them .... if I stuff up feel free to fix it... haha
 
I am glad you posted #6 because it really demonstrates how they will change color just swimming a short distance over sand between algae/rock and environments and then disappear into the new surroundings. I've only tried my camera once in the water (really should try the housing in the tanks for grins) and the visibility was so bad I almost missed my first in situ shark. I tried to get pictures but he was not much more than a shadow to the naked eye and nothing identifiable in the photos. After we came out of the water, I asked Neal if I saw what I thought I did and he agreed that the shadow shape was unmistakably shark. We were only snokeling in shallow water so it was quite a surprise. I thought I would be afraid when I finally detected one but as it turned out, I was terribly disappointed that I did not get a better look and that it swam off so soon (it WAS smaller than me). I thought about swimming after it but decided that might not be a good idea :biggrin2:
 

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