Wonderpus - Fontanelle

[cephaloholic]

hi. i have kept saltwater tanks and octopii before and was wondering about the husbandry of wonderpus. Can anyone tell me because there are so little in books.

Thank You

 

[Thales]

This thread has got all the information I have about keeping a wunderpus, as well as information on why it prolly isn't a good idea to keep them. I don't really have much to add that isn't already in this thread.

 

[Thales]

He is definitely heading into senescence. The tips of some of his arms have been missing and today I saw bristle worms and a hermit crab eating the tip of one of his arms. I try to post the pics later this week. Gruesome. He just sat there and was letting them much away. I have to decide if I should move him, euthanize him, or try to remove the bristle worms and the hermit from his tank.
But all in all a good run. I have had him for over 7 months and he was an adult when I got him.

 

[Animal Mother]

Sad news. Well thank you for all the information and care taken in your endeavor. I'm sure Fontanelle appreciates you, in some odd octopus way.

 

[monty]

 

[cuttlegirl]

I guess this is the point in an octopus's life that it would be eaten by some scavenger in the wild..

 

[Nancy]

Sorry to hear this news. It's the hardest part of keeping an octopus.

Nancy

 

[Thales]

Hey Guys,

Fontenelle died on September 20th. It was pretty quick. I noticed his arms being eaten on the 19th (the pic below of the crab eating his arm was taken that day) and he was dead the next afternoon. The middle pic was taken in the morning (I had never seen him drape/flop his arms that way before), and I found him dead, the last pic, that afternoon.

An arm tip has already been given to Crissy's associate at the California Academy for DNA work, and his body is fixing in formalin so he can be sent to where he will be the most useful.

I do miss seeing him every morning and every night, but I am not too upset that he is dead. Keeping and breeding cephs for the last 4 or 5 years has conditioned me to enjoy they while they are alive and to expect them to die. Its part of the game, and I feel bad if I have done something stupid to cause a ceph death, or if the death is mysterious. In this case, I think he lived a natural lifespan that I was able to document, and I can only feel proud that I was able to pull that off, and even prouder that his remains will be useful - and we really have TONMO to thank for that.

 

[Thales]

And to put all the Fontenelle stuff in one place -

I wrote an article about Fontanelle for Anthony Calfo's magazine. It was just published but here is a link to the copy I scanned and a thumbnail of the first page. Lemmie know what you think!

The Ballet of the Wunderpus

 

[Nancy]

RIP Fontanelle

Thanks for documenting his life and for the photos, Rich.

The article is now accessible from a thread that stays at the top of this forum.

Nancy

 

[monty]

RIP Fontanelle

 

[cuttlegirl]

RIP Fontanelle.

 

[sorseress]

Rip Fontenelle

 

[cthulhu77]

Another one gone from the gene pool in the wild. Guess it's inevitable.

 

[Thales]

Another one gone from the gene pool in the wild. Guess it's inevitable.

I think you mean the same one.