Octopus Disaster (video)

Octopoda

Pygmy Octopus
Registered
Joined
Apr 12, 2013
Messages
11
Location
Germany (Franconia)
Hi,

this year I wanted to make the second part of "Freediving with Octopus". But this time there was something that made me really sad.
So I made a small film that shows the scary side of a Octopuslife.
By the way, we found a lot of lost fish-traps, anywhen we didn't count it anymore.
Every lost fish-trap we found was destroyed by us.

 
Interesting find. It would not seem that they would be trapped in that kind of device but maybe the holes are smaller than they look. I am also curious about him/her not eating the others in the trap.
 
Hi,
I made some notice about octopuses in fish-traps. In all fish-traps I found there were octopuses or fishes. I never found them together. If a fish and a octopus is in a trap, only one species will survive in the first step. In this area the octopus wins, because the fishes are too small and in most cases no predators. So, if a fish and an octopus would have been in the trap, the fish was of course already eaten when I found it. If there is now one octopus inside, the next octopus tries to get in and attack the debilitated octopus. Under this compressed situation octopuses are very cannibalistic (especially octopus vulgaris), so they hurt each other and die due to injuries and stress. This is my experience I made. So you are right, they really tried to eat each other. But they have same size, so they "only" hurt each other and die. In an other fish-trap we found two octopuses that were still alive, but were badly injured.
 
It would be interesting to keep a pair of European vulgaris in one tank and a pair of US vulgaris in a second to see if they show different aggression. Here, multiple vulgaris have been kept in one tank. When they are of equal size, they tend to leave each other alone when they are well fed. It DOES require a larger tank than is typical of the home aquarium.

Of note from one of our TONMOcons, Mote Marine Aquarium found a pair living together (considered unusual) in the wild and kept them for around 2 years in a single tank without aggression.
 
Sounds interesting, in the fish trap the octopus can't hide and has not enough area to avoid a fight. So they must have fought each other due to this extreme conditions. One year ago, I saw an octopus vulgaris eating a squid. So I'm sure in this compressed situation it could tend to cannibalism, but I didn't see it. I also think octopusses are territorial. When I was diving, I only saw the result when octopusses are in captivity without having a chance to avoid contact.
 

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