found in the gulf

[Lemcott]

the cute little dickens...
I'm in St. Pete florida, and I went to the beach last sunday. For some reason, seaweed was covering the beaches and was really dense in the shallow water to (not sure if that is important, but it's not uncommon for that to happen...). There was a family collecting shells in the shallows and when emptying them out, small brown octopuses would reveal themselves. I managed to snag one and get my sister to take a pic with her cell phone. All I know of the octopus is that it's small, brown with transperant/white in some places, found in the Gulf of Mexico/ Tampa bay, and isnt poisonous (lucky me, it bit me 3 times before i remembered there are poisonous octies besides the blue ring...sheesh)

like I said, it was taken with a cell phone so please excuse the low quality...

Im thinking about snagging one if i get the chance to go back soon. Theres nothing in my tank, and after looking through the guides, seems like I'm all set up to keep one.

 

[tonmo]

Neat! Thanks for the pic!

 

[Animal Mother]

Hahah cool. Dang I wish I lived somewhere I could just go out and find them.

Looks like Mercatoris.

 

[Charger21_SD]

Cool octo. I wish I lived by the beach. Nothing except man made lakes in Oklahoma, water wise. Is that a dwarf octo? I had one in my 20g. But don't they only live for like 3 months?

 

[Animal Mother]

Cool octo. I wish I lived by the beach. Nothing except man made lakes in Oklahoma, water wise. Is that a dwarf octo? I had one in my 20g. But don't they only live for like 3 months?

If it is in fact a Mercatoris or maybe Joubini then 6-8 months. There's no telling exactly how old they are if they're wild caught.

I thought it was cool to find a crawdad when I was a kid. I can only imagine how fun it would be to go exploring on the beach.

 

[Charger21_SD]

Ok, I don't know scientific names of all the octopus yet. Never heard of a Mercatoris, I've heard of a Joubini. Can you give common names? Thanks.

 

[Animal Mother]

Ok, I don't know scientific names of all the octopus yet. Never heard of a Mercatoris, I've heard of a Joubini. Can you give common names? Thanks.

That's funny, I don't know the common names of most of them.

It seems most dwarf or pygmy octopuses are labeled just that.

 

[Charger21_SD]

So is it a dwarf we're talking about? I sound like a dumb blonde.

 

[DrBatty]

sure looks like a dwarf.....Charger, you'll gert more familiar with the names the more you read.
When I started, I would just google every octopus species I read here that I hadn't heard of!

 

[Charger21_SD]

Ok. I'll take that advice so I sound like I know a lot, LOL. Just learned a little of shark scientific names, but nobody calls by there scientific names on the shark forum.

 

[monty]

I suspect part of this is that there aren't standardized common names for most octopuses, and when there are, they often don't actually narrow the species ("California two-spot mud flat octopus" refers to both bimac types, which are only differentiated based on egg size and very subtle patterning on the eyespots.)

 

[Jean]

Even sharks can be confusing, in NZ members of Squaliformes or dogfish can be called bramble sharks, dogfish,gulper sharks, lantern sharks, sleeper sharks, rough sharks, kitefin sharks ...there are 27 species in the Squaliformes! totally confusing Then we have the smooth hounds and cat sharks which can also be called dogfish but are in a completely different family the Carchariniformes or ground sharks! .......Sorry about the spouting off we're having sharks as our next holiday programme and I'm in information overload......it has to spill out somewhere!!!!!!

J

 

[DWhatley]

Jean,
I can see why you still haven't dotted all the i's and crossed all your t's yet. You are having too much fun! Once you get your 3 initials, you will be expected to make real money and give up the fun stuff

 

[Cairnos]

Even sharks can be confusing, in NZ members of Squaliformes or dogfish can be called bramble sharks, dogfish,gulper sharks, lantern sharks, sleeper sharks, rough sharks, kitefin sharks ...there are 27 species in the Squaliformes! totally confusing Then we have the smooth hounds and cat sharks which can also be called dogfish but are in a completely different family the Carchariniformes or ground sharks! .......Sorry about the spouting off we're having sharks as our next holiday programme and I'm in information overload......it has to spill out somewhere!!!!!!

J

And just to take it to the next level even a single species such as Rig (Mustellus lenticulatus) has the common names Deepsea bream, dogi, gummy shark, kini, lemonfish, pioke, smooth hound, spotted dogfish, spotted gummy shark, and sweet william.

Then of course there's the sand shark (also called the smalltooth sand tiger) which is not to be confused with the sandshark (also known as the flake, school shark, big boys, grey shark, greyboys, soupfin, and tope).

And those are only the most common names.

 

[allison finch]

I grew up in Sarasota Florida. We were always finding large bivalve half shells with a large hole in the muscle end. Often, when we picked them up in about waist deep water, there would be one of those balled up clinging to the inside. When placed on the bottom, the Shells make cute little habitats.