12 week Mercatoris Survival after brooding

[DWhatley]

It has been mentioned that some female octopuses can live several weeks after egg hatching if they will eat while brooding. The number of weeks has never been specific so I don't know if almost 12 weeks (11 weeks and 5 days) is significant. I have journaled Trapper's time with me including a weekly post of observations and feeding experiments after the babies hatched beginning with post #10 on this thread:

http://www.tonmo.com/community/index.php?threads/6959/

The only other comparison I have is a post from Canada where it appears the mother lived 5 weeks after the hatching:

http://www.tonmo.com/community/index.php?threads/7126/&highlight=mercatoris+babies

 

[Steve O'Shea]

RIP Trapper. You did extremely well!

 

[DWhatley]

Thanks Steve,

I think Trapper did well too but I am hoping others will report actual time frames with experiences since I only find vague references and don't know if this is exceptional, in which case some of my experimentation is worthy of repeating, or only slightly better than average, in which case Trapper's initial health or the small number of eggs would account for the extra time.