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Octopus breeding "colony" anywhere?

tjquinn

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1
I'm a novice with marine species after working with land mammals for a number of years; however, I am looking for some guidance while I am quickly reading journal articles.

1) There are a number of primate centers in the US that contain viable, sustainable research populations. Does a breeding "colony" exist for for Octopus vulgaris, perhaps at one of the Aquariums or coastal universities? If not, what about other related species?

2) I saw an article (Aquaculture Volume 266, Issues 1-4, 1 June 2007, Pages 1-15) that discusses the bottlenecks of rearing Octopus vulgaris. Can anyone point me to a book, article, or series of resources for "best practices" for breeding and rearing Octopus vulgaris?

3) Who are the experts in this field that rear, breed, or conduct research with Octopus vulgaris? A few names would be helpful.

Thanks!
TJ
 
I can't be much assistance for points 1 and 2, but for point 3, the two big research groups that come to mind are Graziano Fiorito et al, at the Naples Zoological Station. I believe most of their animals are trapped locally and not bred in captivity. The other is Binyamin Hochner's group at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I think their specimens are also caught around Naples (Fiorito and Hochner publish together on neurobiology on some occasions). To my knowledge the main research efforts rely on wild caught animals, unlike the cuttlefish groups where rearing from eggs seems more common.

As for additional names (other than Fiorito/Hochner)...

Michael Kuba
Tal Shomrat
J.Z Young (classic papers)
Jean Boal
Ruth Bryne
Raymond Chichery
Jennifer Mather
 
:welcome: to TONMO!

My immediate thought is that the NRCC is your best bet, but I'm not sure if they raise O. vulgaris specifically... I'm sure a lot of other members know more details. If you're looking at an octopus for some research purpose, you may want to consider that small-egged species like vulgaris are much harder to culture than large-egged species like bimaculoides. vulgaris is certainly a popular example in the literature, but I believe most of the experimental animals were wild-caught in Europe (and maybe near Florida).

Mucktopus posted a link to a paper on rearing O. vulgaris here:

The completed life cycle of the octopus

but that work was done in Spain.
 

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