Penelope - O.Vulgaris

[CaptFish]

Still trying to get a better look and picture. Her color and texture change so much that I have had no luck trying to find the channel, if there is one.

I did get this nice shot of her, watching me staring at her.

I gave her a fresh batch of 12 shrimp yesterday morning she pounced on 4 of them immediately and she has been hunting most of today. Her appetite in growing to be like Legs.

 

[DWhatley]

One of the things I have observed on hummelincki that may be somewhat diagnositic is the slight curved shape in the eye when it is mostly closed. I don't have a good reference for other species though so it may be common to all or most.

Do you have any polarized glass around the tank?

 

[CaptFish]

Do you have any polarized glass around the tank?

No.

 

[DWhatley]

I am thinking more around the tank, not the tank itself. Mirrors that might reflect odd light, anything that might present a light image (not TV or computer unless in high def) that we would not notice.

 

[CaptFish]

Hmm, she can see my HDTV and two fish tanks out the front, and on the side my computer(dual HD monitors, both polarized) and another fish tank. the side is my bed, and the back is blacked out. Other than my monitors nothing that is polarized that I am aware of...my sunglasses....

 

[DWhatley]

Just for grins and maybe an interesting experiment on a slow Sunday, try turning off all the electronic light (maybe even cover the monitors) before you approach her tank and see if there is any difference in her behavior.

 

[CaptFish]

Well i finally saw the very very tip of her curled arm. And it is missing the last 1/2 inch of that one arm. There were suckers right up to the amputation. I did not get a good enough view to see if there was any new growth.

 

[CaptFish]

The local bait shops have been out of shrimp for three days now and Penny has been out for two days so I dont want her to go any longer without food so i broke down a bought some more live blue crabs. I picked the six smallest ones he had. they are all have a 2" carapace

 

[Lmecher]

I cannot believe people actually eat those nasty looking/smelling little buggers. I fed Diablo one yesterday, fouled my tank badly, had to remove her and put her into the 120 a bit earlier than I expected. No blue crabs for me ever again, I went to school and learned the hard way. Yours are smaller, if I could find little ones than maybe.

 

[CaptFish]

Things are goodl. Her behavior remains the same, Feisty! At this point I am almost positive she is a he, I'm wondering if he was just not sexually mature when I first got him which is why he did not show any signs of being a male. He has grown a ton lately seems to be about the same rate as Legs. his mantle length is 5.5" that's .5" of growth in the past month.

Pen, is now also eating like a pig. if i drop them all in at once he will grab 4 of the 2" bait crabs I get for him and as many as 8 shrimp. Do to his eating so much in one sitting I have reduced his feeding to only a few times a week.

I also am back to thinking he is a Vulgaris of some kind. I know I saw an eye spot but she seems too large to be a O.Hummelincki. Also every time I read an article about Vulgaris it seems to fit perfectly.

Rocks...I continue to battle with Pen constantly rearranging and knocking over rocks. He had moved so many rocks and disturbed the tank so much that I had a pretty bad ammonia spike. I gave up trying to put the rocks how I want them and I just let him do what he wants, and when one is fallen off the pile I just put it back where ever.

 

[DWhatley]

Neal had an interesting thought when we were discussing Pen and the hummelincki that Roy obtained that did not show their eyespots for a long time. Vulgaris don't have eyespots. If the eyespots were brown and not yellow rimmed blue (or yellow and purple as you called it), then there is a chance that it is O.Maya (they get large). I don't think we know much about interspecies breeding and it may be that hummelincki and vulgaris are compatible. Hummelincki has a particularly odd background and has the two names because the original, filosus, was reverted to vulgaris then rediscoverd and named hummelincki. The old name has gone back and forth from official to depreciated. An the variation in size seems to be greater than the normal odd variation (somewhere, and I can no longer find the reference, hummelincki was classified as a dwarf and then reclassified as a medium). Perhaps he really is a hummelgaris or vulginki or that hummelincki is really vulgmac and could mate with either vulgaris or bimac.

 

[kpage]

Ohh interesting, I wonder if that is the case. That would be some interesting research- breeding between different species!

 

[CaptFish]

 

[sulley]

awesome shots capt...has she warmed up to you yet

 

[DWhatley]

Not vulgaris. Penny has all the markings of Octane and vulgaris don't have that patterning ability. I have wondered for a very long time if there are not two species that are classified as filosus/hummelincki just as there were two dwarf species in the Caribbean that went under the name joubini (besides one being large egg and the other small they don't look all that much alike) for years (and still do in a lot of circles). Octane would eat a full sized table shrimp about 5 days a week, we have never had another octo that would eat that heartily. In my daydreams, these could be like the bimacs and one could be large egged but no one has had a large female. At first I though perhaps the female is just smaller but we have seen small males and one study made notes about a particularly large female that skewed the averages.