ID please, or educated guess at least (Australian)

[Ash]

Hi Guys & Gals,

picked up this little guy from a local store the other day in Townsville, QLD Australia. I believe the collection point for the live rock he was found with was Cairns, QLD Aust.


LFS believes he is a "dwarf reef octopus", nice & vague.

Firstly, in the bag

In the tank - for reference the live rock behind him is about tennis ball sized

He has changed colour when he went into the tank to more match his surroundings.

I can't really tell you much more, will try to get more photos but he appears to be nocturnal which makes getting the shots a little hard - what is a good colour light to view him without disturbing him at night, red?

Cheers
Ash

 

[Animal Mother]

K-Lite Codec Pack 17.7 Free Download

Get that & it'll work (PC anyway, no idea about Mac)

Crap excuse for broadband in regional Australia, I have to make it small so it'll upload before it drops out

edit: OK, I'm uploading the MOV format version, it is only about 2mb so it should get uploaded fine.

http://ash.distanteye.org/fish/nano/2007-10-05/100_7815.mov

Cool. Now I can see it. Very cool little one.

 

[monty]

OK, I did a little more searching - seeing as Diz & someone else suggested Abdopus aculeatus - I googled & a hit on this site brings up this guy, which is spitting image of mine.... http://www.tonmo.com/gallery/showphoto.php/photo/562/cat/all

So, if that one was accurately IDed I guess I know what mine is now, so specific info on this species? I've been trying to find info about it on this forum & via google but nothing useful specific to this species comes up.

Try just searching on aculeatus... when I do a TONMO search on that, I get 155 different threads. For extra confusion, the species used to be named Octopus aculeatus and has been/ is being reclassified as Abdopus aculeatus (I don't remember if there's still argument about that among those who argue about such things, but most of the scientists here seem to accept Abdopus) so many people just say "aculeatus." Unfortunately for googling, there are a number of unrealted animals that are Something aculeatus.

To narrow things down to aculeatus keeping, you might want to look at the "list of our octopuses" that's a sticky thread in journals & photos, and find the name of the octopus and the owner for people who have kept aculeatus, and then search on the octopuses name or get all posts from the owner, or something like that. A number of researchers have kept them, too; I think Mucktopus did a lot of field work with them in particular.

 

[Ash]

Great tips monty, I'll get onto it.

 

[DWhatley]

Ash,
It turns out I had an Xvid Codex but it didn't work with your Australian encoding (likely broken since I have had problems with media player staying open). The link you sent had some tools that I was dubious to try but elected to remove my existing Xvid and let it clean up my registry for broken codex and everything (including your vids) seems to work well now - THANKS.

Seth is adorable!

 

[Ash]

Seth has passed away today 29/12/07

He went off his food 3 nights ago & became quite inactive compared to his usual self.

He really didn't grow much if at all in the 3 1/2 months that I had him, so I suppose that would fit with the theory of him being some sort of nocturnal dwarf with a lifespan of only about 6 months.


RIP buddy

 

[dreadhead]

sorry dude.

 

[cuttlegirl]

RIP little guy...

 

[monty]

RIP Seth

 

[L8 2 RISE]

RIP

 

[AquaForce]

RIP Seth....