[Featured]: Octopus living in groups and more stuff

[monty]

Very cool, thanks for keeping us updated!

 

[jugglematt]

Hello All
we went back to visit the occys this weekend . found these eggs
any idea if they are Occy eggs ? if so how long till they hatch . water temp 16c depth 17m

Thanks
Matty

 

[DWhatley]

Matt,
I don't think so. If they are ceph eggs then they could be cuttlefish. From the little I know of ceph eggs, octo eggs are pear shaped like these, would be inside a den and mom would still be hanging around protecting, cleaning and stimulating them (assuming she was alive). Squid eggs, I think, are are laid in a a cluster of elongated tubes with each tube containing multiple eggs. The only ceph eggs we have seen that are round are cuttlefish eggs and I think, from a prior thread, the broad club's are white (the flamboyant's may be too but in your neck of the woods, Sepia latimanus is probably a decent guess).

 

[jugglematt]

Thanks for that i should also add that
after big swell over the past week it seems the pipe has rolled over , exposing the underside of the pipe and these eggs .
so these eggs would have been protected when laid .

i also looked inside the pipe and there are eggs in there as well

Regards
Matt

 

[DWhatley]

That would fit with a cuttle, Jenn has mentioned that when looking for bandensis eggs in an aquarium, look in the darkest most remote spot in the tank. The videos I have seen show them putting eggs inside holes in coral. I don't know how many eggs you would expect from a single cuttle. The bendensis that we keep in home aquariums can lay multiple times, where I believe all the large ones only lay once. Jenn's female laid over 100 eggs over her lifetime so I would think something similar would be true of the species that only lay once but I am only guessing. Besides the shape, the opaqueness and individual placement makes me think of cuttle eggs more than octo eggs but my exposure has been minimal and not at all with anything from down under.

I am going to see if I can find the picture Paradox took of his broadclub egg and will post back in a sec if I find it.
[edit] Here it is

 

[jugglematt]

Someone has suggested striped pygama squid/cuttlefish . similar egg case

http://www.deepseaimages.com/dsilibrary/showphoto.php?photo=9656


thanks for the suggestions
ill keep an eye on them
Matt

 

[DWhatley]

Those sure look identical! The trouble I had with the broadclub egg in Paradox's picture is that it seemed to have a "point" where your's don't show one.

Are you going to try to monitor them to get us a cool video of them hatching or at least some hatchlings?

 

[jugglematt]

i will definitely monitor the eggs , im only able to visit every week or so , depending on conditions

so i will be very lucky to capture a hatching . but ill be able to monitor their sdevelopment

Thanks for the information Guys

 

[jugglematt]

so i had a guy come down to look at the octopus site who is doing a paper on Occys . . he sais the Group living so close together is quite unique , and is not aware of it anywhere else.

so has anyone herd of any other cases of octopus living together in groups?
ive counted 12 at its peak, now there are about 5 living closley , some within 800mm



regards
matt

 

[DWhatley]

Matt,
I suspect it happens more often than is recorded and that some of the literature is written with little in situ observation (or fail to identify individuals correctly, thus counting two or more as one animal). The Florida O. mercatoris dwarfs are often found in cultured live rock brought in from a single farming area. I don't have an immediate link to the study but one European researcher placed piece of pipe in an open area in an attempt to study O. vulgaris and had 75% occupancy in a matter of days. Hopefully Mucktopus will visit and see the post and give a distance approximation of the group she observed (A.aculeatus) while doing her doctorial work.

 

[jugglematt]

Hello all
an octopus update , we went back to the occy site today , not much to report , but the eggs seem to have gone , not sure if they have hatched or been eaten .

had a really cool encounter with an occy at another nearby site ,
my buddy found an occy living in a hole which happily played with a torch , after a while i came over and the occy climed on my camera , and played with it for a while , after that he climbed onto my hand , grabbed on and started swimming out into the open dragging me along !!!!, he had hold of me sucking on and swimming me along and also sort of walking himself along the bottom , this went on fro about 4/5 mins he was happy to hold onto me pulling along with a fair amount of force , he then took me to his occy den and pulled my hand inside his den and kept hold !!!

how cool , i then tried the RUB between the eyes trick , and he seemed to like it , he sort of wiggled his tentacles and just let me rub his forehead for another 2 mins

and my buddy got video with my camera, 12 mins in all, ill trim it down to 2 or 3 mins and post it on youtube ,
v cool creature .


so whats the reasoning behind the occy taking me for a swim?

is this behavior seen commonly????


video to come soon
Matty

 

[DWhatley]

Can't wait for the video!!!!

 

[jugglematt]

here it is

 

[DWhatley]

It stopped at 1:31 in the lower resolution but changing to the higher resoultion let me see all of it. I would have liked to have seen the whole thing but that might have taken two days to upload (they do a have a large file upload that restarts ).

 

[CaptFish]

Worked fine for me. but that has happened to me with other videos, just try again later.

Great video I can almost hear the octopus talking...."My human!...Mine...get back you darn fish, this ones mine!....come on you.... Now get in here, come on....OK now..massage please...oh yeah a little to the left...oh yeah...."