Mud! (New octo at the aquarium)

[Tintenfisch]

Hi everyone, just thought I would share some photos of our new baby... Steve and I went for a dive north of Auckland a few weeks ago and collected a new octopus for Kelly Tarlton's (the aquarium in Auckland). Our old friend Slime, after a good long run of terrorizing aquarium staff and patrons with her water-squirting trick, has laid eggs and gone to the Big Scallop Bed In The Sky.



But meet Mud (or 'Dave' if you ask Steve), her replacement. Mud is a young O. gibbsi (New Zealand 'sand octopus'). Her mantle is slightly smaller than a tennis ball, and after a week of sitting high up behind a pipe in the tank, she has gotten used to her new home and is ready for adventure. So far, she has learned to come straight up to the top of the tank to take food from our hands, to play tug-o-war, and to squirt small but well-aimed water jets out the top (so Slime's spirit lives on). Proud parent, you ask? Well, maybe.

 

[DHyslop]

What a magnificent creature!

Dan

 

[Jean]

awwwwwwwwwwwwww! Mud's lovely!

I'd reciprocate with a pic of Squidgy, but he's still doing the "I vant to be alone" thing in the pipe at the back of the tank!!

J

 

[corw314]

What a beauty and great shots!!! Best of luck with him!!! Love the name!

Carol

 

[dawnchihuahua]

AWWW I love the crab pic!

 

[pipsquek]

AWWW I love the crab pic!

I thought of putting a crab like that on Big Red, sure wish I had that picture then!! Nice one.

Of course, I still have the giant hunk of copper that I am still paying for, no reason I couldn't add it later on........Maybe I'll save that idea for the squid.

 

[WhiteKiboko]

Very nice shots Kat, but i didnt think you were a Primus fan.....

 

[Tintenfisch]

OK, WK, I'll bite. ... Huh? ...

 

[WhiteKiboko]

wasnt trying to bait you or anything... they had a song.... "my name is mud"

 

[Colin]

what temp does mud live at Kat?

 

[Tintenfisch]

Ambient - she's on a flow-through system and is at a combination of the air temp and whatever the oustide water temp is (after it's been through the pre-filter). So at the moment about 22; in the winter it drops to about 16 I think?

 

[Scouse]

very cool!!

how bigs the arm span TF??

im in a cycle at mo an lookin good

nitrites 1
nitrates 1.5

got a big african starfish, lots of xenia an button polps an weird creatures from outta space
cant wait 4 wanna them >

 

[Tintenfisch]

Just had to share a Mud update. She has grown a bit, though not as much as the other little octo we picked up at the same time, who was about a quarter of her size and is now easily equal. Still likes to come up and play, and the other day she apparently got one of the other staff members into a sticky spot - he wasn't paying attention while feeding her, and somehow she managed to get such a hold on his arm that he was stuck facing away from the tank with his arm basically pinned behind his back! (I'm a little skeptical on this - her mantle is slightly larger than a large grapefruit and her arms are probably about a meter long, but she's never put me in a hold I couldn't easily break.) But wait, the story gets better - at this point Mud began to bite. She gave the guy a small nip on the hand, then moved to a different spot and really began to chew, which he somehow tolerated for a half hour (he maintains he was stuck) until someone from the public distracted her and rescued him, finally permitting him to withdraw his bleeding hand from the tank! And within minutes, the site of the second bite had swollen to about twice its original size, which as far as Steve can recall is the first incidence of anyone ever being envenomated by Pinnoctopus cordiformis. (I mean - who stands around long enough to get envenomated??)

 

[Jean]

We've held them for 74 years and have no records like that!!!!! But it was a MALE keeper right (sorry guys!) Maybe he wanted to feel things from a crabs perspective???? One of our blokes decided to see how the stings of a sea anemone felt on his lips...............................!

J

PS Kat are you going to CIAC?

 

[Tintenfisch]

I plan to.

And yeah, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a species you'd have to try harder to get seriously bitten by than P. cordiformis...