Murray - O. briareus Our new addition..

Makes sense...smaller animals could be more prone to predation, hence adopt the ambush/filter-feed method to minimize the risk, right?
 
I'm leaning toward that thinking but it may be that I just have not observed enough (ie, perhaps it is more species related or related to where they spent their first few months). In trying to pay attention to the behavior again, I do not see Octavia (much larger O. hummelincki who was fairly young when entering the tank but older than Yeti) skimming the water this way.
 
For whatever reason I was suddenly thinking about this..

Do Octopus see in two or three dimensions?

Reading another post on here by GPX1200 that has two octos in two close tanks and reading how they interacted upon "seeing" each other made me think, if you were to take a video of your singular octo and play it back on an iPad or similar device next to the tank would the octo react? I don't want to try it as we dont want to take any steps backward in our progress with Murray, but it intrigued me thinking of the idea..

Just rambling..
Bill
 
You make me work too much :wink: but I did located an article that includes the information I remember reading more or less on this topic. The gist is that experiments with TV did not get octopuses attention but when they experimented with HD TV they found that the faster refresh rate allowed the octos to react to video food. Not exactly 2D vs 3D but related to the iPad thinking.

I also found an unread article of interest discussing cuttlefish and the added information they may get from their polarized vision

HOWEVER, it is my conclusion that O. briareus has very poor eyesight and seem to be very far sighted (ie can't see anything clearly that is close by) so if you experiment, try different distances. I believe my male and female could see each other across the room (about 20 feet).

I will also tell you that I experimented with a mirror and an O. mercatoris and the merc would not go to the side of the tank where the mirror was placed. Once I removed the mirror, it used the full tank.
 
HOWEVER, it is my conclusion that O. briareus has very poor eyesight and seem to be very far sighted (ie can't see anything clearly that is close by) so if you experiment, try different distances. I believe my male and female could see each other across the room (about 20 feet).

I still have no personal opinion on this, the jury is still out for me. but interestingly when we talked about ceph eys in marine Bio class. the briareus was specifically mentioned as being on of the octopus with better vision than most. there were no sources cited pertaining to where this information came from but the breakdown of the eye lead me to believ it is true. however like D i have noticed times where i ws thinking "how can not see that shrimp!" but other times i see them react to things i never would have thought they could see, i would to study this further on day.
 
We found the missing 8th arm!

Trying to post a video, but having issues..hopefully will problem solve by tomorrow..

See:link when i get it posted..sorry

Bill
 
It looks like he is growing it back nicely. Interesting that we could see no sign of it originally. I wonder how far into the webbing the predator chomped to leave no trace.
 
Murray loves Va Oysters! A neighbor got them for a Christmas party and gave me 6 of them and I put them in display tank to see if they would live and amazingly they did fine!



A special treat mixed with clams, shrimp and fiddlers provide a varied diet..


Bill
 

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Up until CaptFish mentioned that he has seen O. briareus throw an arm, I have said that arm loss during capture would be an unusual occurrence. If there is regrowth showing, capture damage is still not going to be at fault (because of the time it takes for the arms to show regeneration) but I don't know where a voluntary arm release would occur (it would not have been just ripped off and if cut off (by one of the lobster/crab fishermen, not a collector) it would not be at the webbing. The fact that all signs of the arm seemed to be missing makes me wonder about voluntary amputation. If I remember correctly the Abdopus arm detatches along the arm, not at the webbing. I wish I knew more about this aspect.

I strongly believe Murray is male. If you rewatch the video you will see the not countable :biggrin2: third arm on the right (clockwise, orienting your eyes with the octopus') is quite detectably curled as he swims from left to right in the tank.

Just be sure all of the oyster is eaten quickly. I would recommend against trying to leave live ones in the tank. Good food but can be messy and foul the tank easily. The same goes for mussels but for unknown reasons clams don't make a nasty mess (anything eaten is, of course, not a problem). I will put clams from the grocery in the tanks (after overnighting in a bucket of tank water) fairly often. Sometimes they are eaten right away (Octavia loves them) and sometimes they act as a minor clean up crew for months (eventually, they are consumed though, if not by the resident octo, by the next one).
 
No worries about it being eaten quickly! Lol I either open and remove the oyster clean from shell and feed it or if we want to see him for about 10 min i leave it on the half shell. Either way the longest it takes is about 10 min..

What is the ballpark time or growth rate for arm regeneration? Or is it environment dependent? Just curious as there was absolutely no sign of an arm and four weeks later we have the tiny tip growing if I had to guess maybe less than 1cm..

Bill
 
Bill,
Growth rate seems to vary or we fail to document it well. It would be helpful to try to note length every week or month if you can remember and get a good guess on length (hard to do). My estimate is about an inch a month after you see the little stub but others have reported almost that in a week.

If you have extra unopened clams, try leaving two in the tank but put them in after you have fed him his normal fare. Then see how long it survives. LittleBit and Octavia would eat them within a day anytime I put them in the tank but others would use them for "snack" if they were hungry and some clams lived as a minor clean-up crew over more than one octo.
 

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