Thanks Carol,
The ID request got missed with all the Xmas family stuff in December and I have 99% acertained that Trapper is a Mercatoris. She only showed that greenish color the first day while in her shipping jar. She never grew any more and now will not leave her den. Fortunately, I put a grouping of large barnicle shells in the tank just before she started brooding and she chose one of these for her permenant den (prior to brooding she moved her den every 2-4 days). I was able to move the opening to an angle where she is viewable (when her "door" is open) and have been able to feed her daily.
I have been trying to get her to interact with me with an ET kind of touch (I believe you did this with an octo in an aquarium once?) for the last month and tonight she seems to have reponded. I am not sure, of course, but she did not close her door (or make me vanish by closing her eyes as she has done before) after reaching out to my finger (on the outside of the aquarium). I will try again tomorrow and see if she responds. It is so sad to know what is coming but I have kept up my nightly visits from the beginning and at least now I can sit with her earlier in the evening (she initially would not come out until around 4:00 AM). I hope my nightly attention is helping to keep her stimulated rather than scaring her but the arm that was extended was brown, not white. Twice now, she has extended an arm upward when I have been late bringing her dinner (I have mentioned being a food slave before

). I wasn't sure about the action the first time but tonight she repeated it as I was climbing up the little ladder I use to dangle the dead crab in front of her (she wants nothing to do with anything alive).
I have notice you keep serpents with yours too. I decided to move the red one out of Trap's tank though as it was getting too friendly when she started brooding. I was afraid the serpent knew there would be eggs (I recently found a reference that says serpents eat octo eggs and may be a reason for the close proximity

) because it was
constantly exploring the den opening. I was not sure if Trap would harm the serpent since it kept insisting on menacing her so they are now separated. There are actually a couple others in the tank but only one other comes to the front. It has now become more visible since I removed the red one but has not been a constant harasser. I miss the red one though as it was always clearly visible in the low light tank. Its current tank has higher lighting and I have to look closely just to see a couple of arms.