Rubik - O.briareus

[gruffy]

Scary, he was just laying in his den not moving and showed no reaction to light. It didn't even look like he was siphoning water. So what did I do? Tried to remove his shell door. What did he do.... nothing. He looked quite dead. I moved him with my new feeding stick, and no movement. He was scarily limp. I then tried to move his shell door with the new feeding stick. He suddenly came to life and was extremely pissed off. The way he was laying was like a sunbather at the beach... very strange. Today he has massacred two hermits and a stone crab that is the same size as his mantle. Very odd period of behavior. He has moved his shell door aside and now watches out into the tank. So I introduced 20 glass shrimp to give him some new playmates. They are very small, but still will make a decent meal for him at this size.

 

[DWhatley]

Iguanas are infamous for that kind of behavior but the only thing I have seen that only approximates it in octopus is when Puddles is sleeping on the glass and I fail to wake her up before touching her. It takes much less to awaken her and she gets pissed and swims off showing aggression colors (she is never really aggressive, also an odd behavior for an octopus).

What is your water temperature?

 

[gruffy]

Water temp is 78, which is about spot on the temp where my friend caught him. Is red the aggression color? Pardon my ignorance, but the hummelinckis I have kept typically never turned red where rubik does so quite often. He also has a kind of clear spotty coloration that is exhibited a good bit. I have not noticed the green sheen that seems to be trademark to the briareus.

 

[DWhatley]

Yes, briareus have a red color (usually kind of peachy but sometimes more red) as do mercatoris. It is definitely not the brown that the hummelincki's show. The only times I have seen the briareus all red I have felt they were POed. They will show a splotchy (almost stripe like if you go across the arms) red white and I don't know if it is a mood signfier or not. SueNami's acclimation pictures show her on the back wall with the coloration that I think you mean and I can't imagine that she was not stressed. KaySoh is pretty much pink all the time now and she is in her last days but I don't know that the color has anything to do with the stress or the waning life (KaySoh is post brood). We really don't have a good go by as far as color and mood. Look at the List of Our Octopuses 2008 and 2009 the species are listed and there are links back to the journals where you can look at some of the coloring we have photographed. Where I have the info, the beginning journal date and the death date are recorded so finding one with a longer history will likely have the most photos.

The green fluorescence is mostly seen on the skin "bumps" when they are primarily white.