Flamboyants

[aromantis]

Well the other day i was in baltimore and saw a flamboyant in one of the pet stores. I didnt but it, but i saw that it was 150 dollars. THe guy there seemed fairly knowledgable but said that his stockers had accidently put in a flamboyant. (He would not have purposely bought on for the shop). i was just wondering why noone likes the idea of flamboyants in the traid. I know they are not well known but from wat the guy said his is very easy to care for and he also said that it is very owner responsive. He showed me a feeding and the cuttle ate rite out of his hand.

 

[mucktopus]

Flamboyants produce small clutches of large eggs, only once at the end of their short life span. This means their populations would have a very hard time bouncing back from overfishing, overcollection, habitat destruction, etc. They live on sandy bottom habitats that are periodically trawled in many places, and they're certainly not fast enough to crawl away from the oncoming trawl. Collection for the aquarium trade adds insult to injury. Few tropical sandy bottom sites are well-monitored, but in Lembeh (probably the best-observed 'muck' site in the world), their numbers are not what they used to be. There's a lot of local speculation that when a rare animal is sighted, the aquarium collectors swoop in and catch it, as happens with mimics and wunderpus.

But the large eggs would make them great candidates for captive breeding. As far as I know no one is doing this on a regular basis.

 

[Animal Mother]

I would hate to encourage more capturing, but yeah, breeding them would be superb. Gorgeous animals.

 

[monty]

Has anyone found out any more about that report on a documentary a few months ago that Mark Norman found some extremely potent toxin in a Metasepia's viscera? It seemed to imply that this was more likely to be a problem for eating it than being bitten by it, but it's possible that handling them could be dangerous. Of course, Thales kept one for some time a few years back... I don't remember him mentioning if he touched it or interacted with it directly, but he appears to have survived more or less intact...

 

[cephaloholic]

I have heard from someone about a flamboyant in a pet store but didn't catch the name. Could anyone tell me the basic care of flamboyants.

tank requirements
feeding
breeding

Cephaloholic

 

[Thales]

I have heard from someone about a flamboyant in a pet store but didn't catch the name. Could anyone tell me the basic care of flamboyants.

tank requirements
feeding
breeding

Cephaloholic

If you haven't kept a ceph before, you prolly want to stay away from this species. It isn't a good animal to learn on.

 

[aromantis]

well i know that their flesh is poisonous to eat. But i dont think their bite is toxic. I just think it would be great for someone to captive breed them. THis way hobbyists could keep them but not reduce wild populations. As the old saying goes... things alway get worse before they get better. So i just think they should catch several specimens. Have some expert ceph keepers purchase them and start a captive breeding program.

 

[mucktopus]

well i know that their flesh is poisonous to eat.

How do you know this?

 

[marinebio_guy]

It's not as easy as it sounds for many reasons. Usually on one or two come in through the importors at a time so it's almost imposible to get a group of them at the same time and with a cost of around $200 its not cheap. Second, I've had a small group of them when I worked for the NRCC and where not able to get them to breed although a few showed mating behavior. As far as I know only 2 places have had them breed in captivity, both being public aquariums.

 

[monty]

well i know that their flesh is poisonous to eat. But i dont think their bite is toxic. I just think it would be great for someone to captive breed them. THis way hobbyists could keep them but not reduce wild populations. As the old saying goes... things alway get worse before they get better. So i just think they should catch several specimens. Have some expert ceph keepers purchase them and start a captive breeding program.

Because it's sort of a personal ambition of mine to have the best possible information on toxicity of cephs, I have to ask:

1) how do you know their flesh is toxic to eat?
2) why do you think their bits are not toxic?

As far as I've been able to tell, Mark Norman has talked about some vague and unpublished research about the flesh being toxic on one TV show. I haven't found any further information on this, so if you have any other source of info, I'd love to add it to our understanding.

In that investigation, he claimed the result that the flesh was toxic, but he didn't really say one way or the other about the bite, although by implication the toxin he found in the flesh probably wasn't found in the saliva. However, I think it's irresponsible for us to have anything here that says that it's safe for people to keep these animals as pets until we have solid evidence of what the risks are, what is and isn't safe in terms of handling, and so forth.

I have no idea why Mark Norman has not published this research; maybe it's in the peer review process or maybe the toxin is being patented or something for medical use (which he implies in the show, but I didn't think that was incompatible with publication of the results.) But it seems to me that it is very concerning that there is known to be a toxin that's potentially fatal to humans involved with these animals, but no details. I don't think we should find out the details by having someone killed by their pet.