BENABEHENRY octo?

[gholland]

Can anybody ID this octo kept by BENABEHENRY back in 2005?

http://www.tonmo.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/370
Didn't see an ID when searching the old threads.

 

[Animal Mother]

I wouldn't go as far as to say aculeatus, but the two I've kept have displayed very similar patterns and the flattened out, bowed arms, as well as the black and gold coloration. The texture and eyes just don't look right. And that looks like a larger species, although that doesn't mean anything because there isn't anything to reference it by. Just looks bigger.

 

[Animal Mother]

I was looking for capricornus! Can't find pics of the other Abdopus octos to save my life.

 

[DWhatley]

I wouldn't go as far as to say aculeatus, but the two I've kept have displayed very similar patterns and the flattened out, bowed arms, as well as the black and gold coloration. The texture and eyes just don't look right. And that looks like a larger species, although that doesn't mean anything because there isn't anything to reference it by. Just looks bigger.

The link is to Octopus (abdopus) capricornius (pg 239 in Norman's Cephalopods a World Guide) and seems to meet those just slightly different observations.

 

[DWhatley]

I was looking for capricornus! Can't find pics of the other Abdopus octos to save my life.

I am searching for more info and pics as well. I have found mention of the reclassification (Cephbase is, as usual, down ) and several other references without information but nothing that has pictures or descriptions.

 

[gholland]

I've also found a few photos attributed to the Sydney octopus (O. tetricus) that look similar, but who knows... there are so many undescribed Aussie octos and the casual observer may simply call it the one name they know.

 

[Neogonodactylus]

I've seen this - or something very similar on the GBR, but I think it is un-named.

Roy

 

[mucktopus]

It does look like it's in Abdopus. Many of these species look so similar that it's hard to tell the difference just by looking- even standard morphological characters can be tricky. I posted some pics of acuelatus on the Tree of Life website a while back. If you have access to a university library you can find more by searching google scholar for Abdopus aculeatus and checking out the papers on their body patterning and locomotion respectively.
Hope this helps!
C

 

[stomato]

Sorry it's taken me so long to join in on this thread all. Thanks for kicking it off for us gholland. We are quite used to working with many species of mantis and several common species of octopus (bimacs, blue-rings, etc.) But we do feel that this species is very different. My partner and manager Thomas has kept many for several years now and he too concludes that he has no experience with this species.

They measure over 12" from tip to tip and about 12" from mantle to arm tip. Their mantle is about 4-5". At rest they have small round papillae, but once in motion they seem to disappear. It may have no bearing on the identification of this species, but we have seen them bear a wide variety of color patterns. From solid grey, to white, to jet black, to jet black with a single white stripe down the mantle, to mottled brown/black, and so on.

The photo listed was when one did not like my presence and attempted to attack or perhaps scare me off. I had the feeling that he would have attacked me if I was in there with him.

I have spoken to Roy and our plan is to get them shipped to him and his staff there at Berkley today. At this point we do not have the ability to identify them further.

Our apologies for not getting here sooner. Our next shipment arrives next week which is sure to be another good one. Thanks for all the help everyone.

 

[DWhatley]

I had this premonition that someone (uh humm) at Berkeley had an interest ...

 

[stomato]

We like to give research department opportunities to further their and our knowledge. We have dedicated several questionable species of stomatopod throughout the last year in the name of research. Fortunately we have very good resources for obtaining various species. We will be bringing in a few more of them for sure.