Oh My! We realized 1 week ago today that our "boring" octopus, Legs, isn't actually boring, she is brooding!! (We just began the adventure of keeping an octopus in January 2015, and while we've read everything we can find about mercs on TONMO, any additional thoughts/insights would be greatly appreciated.) A brief recap:
3/18/15 - I surprised my kids by picking up a new octopus (our previous one had died a month or so earlier) at The Fish Collection in North Miami Beach. Legs was $29 and sold to us as a "small" atlantic octopus (seems to be the common terminology here). After some research, my best guess sis that she is an o. mercatoris.
4/10/15 - Over 3 weeks since we got Legs, and while she happily accepts crabs that my son hand-feeds her we have never seen her outside of the den that she chose the first day she came home.
4/12/15 - The Fish Collection said that we could bring her back for store credit as our kids were really wanting to get another active, fun to watch octo like our first - best guess was that he was an abdopus aculeatus. We decided to take her rock out of the tank to see if we could persuade her to come out of her hole when we realized that she had a very good reason for staying in there - she had laid eggs!
4/13/15 - Legs will still accept a hand-fed crab and we are able to watch her clean and care for her eggs, but we can't get a good enough view to see if they are fertilized. (However, I think I see eyes in this picture.)
4/14/15 - This morning my boys and I all think that we are seeing eye spots, but a photo taken this afternoon confirms it - they eggs are definitely developing!
3/18/15 - I surprised my kids by picking up a new octopus (our previous one had died a month or so earlier) at The Fish Collection in North Miami Beach. Legs was $29 and sold to us as a "small" atlantic octopus (seems to be the common terminology here). After some research, my best guess sis that she is an o. mercatoris.
4/10/15 - Over 3 weeks since we got Legs, and while she happily accepts crabs that my son hand-feeds her we have never seen her outside of the den that she chose the first day she came home.
4/12/15 - The Fish Collection said that we could bring her back for store credit as our kids were really wanting to get another active, fun to watch octo like our first - best guess was that he was an abdopus aculeatus. We decided to take her rock out of the tank to see if we could persuade her to come out of her hole when we realized that she had a very good reason for staying in there - she had laid eggs!
4/13/15 - Legs will still accept a hand-fed crab and we are able to watch her clean and care for her eggs, but we can't get a good enough view to see if they are fertilized. (However, I think I see eyes in this picture.)
4/14/15 - This morning my boys and I all think that we are seeing eye spots, but a photo taken this afternoon confirms it - they eggs are definitely developing!