You should look for some photo contests and enter but you may be hard pressed to get them to believe you didn't photo shop it . I am going to make myself a note to reference this next time someone says octopus tentacles. The difference is so very nicely displayed. Not only in the tentacle ends but that the entire structure look different.
Some more feeding insanity pics - decided to shoot from the top of the tank. They are now starting to follow the food outside of the tank and above the water. I had one of my females fire her tentacles out of the water like an archer fish to hit their food. Completely nuts. Of course I missed that shot...
Now you are going to have to write an article to try to get some of these great shots published The water effects of the last one really make a striking photo.
Since I havent gotten any viable eggs from the resident female and since my isolated female is putting out tons of unfertilized eggs I decided to drop in my resident male. Mating started within about an hour, but the female seemes to be fairly unwilling to comply. I think that being isolated for a few months and never having been approached to mate might be a fairly stressful situation for her. I'll keep an eye on them and remove the male after a day or so if all goes well. The male is being relentless in his mating attempts. I wish i could tell what serious signs of stress would be.
Do you see the original female excreting something after mating still? Are you seeing it with the new female? I don't recall anyone mentioning fluid release and since her eggs have not been fertile, I wonder if she jettisons the spermataphores.
I think that may be what was happening with the original female. Almost every time I saw her mate she would excrete. The new female made similar motions but nothing has been released. An interesting thing is that she (the new one) will float around with her arms open for a good 30 seconds after mating. Something I never saw the other female do.
They are both snuggled up now. Male stopped with the mating behavior a few hours ago. Thank god...thought he was gonna sex her into oblivion.
I wonder if he is/was not quite sexually mature and just a randy preteen. From what I have seen in pictures the spermataphores should look like little strings and not a milky fluid.
I didn't come up with a good Google search for pictures but this link has some squid spermatophores and an interesting young gentlemen examining them in the 5th photo
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