New Video of Kashmir 'walking'

[tonmo]

In light of the recent passing of joefish84's bimac Kashmir, I've finally gotten around to compressing and posting an amazing video he provided of Kashmir showing the "walking" behavior which made a splash in the news earlier this year. To our knowledge this is the first video clip of a bimac "walking".

Video Gallery -- it's the entry marked 12/28/05.

RIP Kashmir -- thanks to joefish84 for the great video and pictures, and for taking such good care of his octo.

 

[main_board]

Wow! That was a serious pounce! joefish, did kash always walk away when carrying prey, or did you just get lucky and catch him in the act this one time? Fantastic footage. The walking seemed like it took no effort and came very naturally to the creature. Kash will be greatly missed.

Cheers!

 

[mucktopus]

Nice video of Kashmir hunting- the swimming pounce is fantastic and shows how well they can move quickly while keeping an eye on they prey. Once he catches the crab he crawls backward using a form of crawling that's similar to (but still distinct from) the bipedal walking reported last spring. In the video we can see that he's using arm pairs three and four. The arms on the left side are visible, and you can see the ends of the corresponding arms on the right side rolling back, also involved in the gait. The bipedal octopuses used arm pair four- but we did find one little octo that tried using a third arm in a similar way (he was missing both arms in pair four). As shown in your video, these arm pairs can work together to crawl-- yet another example of how diverse octopus locomotion can be!

 

[joefish84]

i didnt know that mine was the only bimac recorded doing this. he did this all the time.

 

[joefish84]

by the way how do you play a ram file

 

[monty]

by the way how do you play a ram file

realplayer -- www.real.com

 

[joefish84]

got it

 

[tonmo]

i didnt know that mine was the only bimac recorded doing this. he did this all the time.

I was referencing what you said in email when you sent it --

thought it would be a neat video to post since ive only seen one other video of this and it was of a mimic walking like sea weed

I hadn't seen a bimac do it either, so here we are!

 

[joefish84]

oh ok

 

[Armstrong]

I thought the video was pretty cool, but brief. At first it looks like the ordinary movement of an octopus with it's prey. In Ultimate Guide Octopus it stated that Octo's sometimes use their arms as legs to bump along the sea floor. I guess this is the first time a Bimac had done it? It doesn't look like the bi-pedal locomotion done in the news.

 

[tonmo]

It doesn't look like the bi-pedal locomotion done in the news.

Really? I disagree -- it's clearly holding the crab with all but a couple of arms, and it's using the free ones to get back to his den, one after another -- seems pretty straight-forward to me! *shrug*

 

[Armstrong]

Really? I disagree -- it's clearly holding the crab with all but a couple of arms, and it's using the free ones to get back to his den, one after another -- seems pretty straight-forward to me! *shrug*

Im not sure. I viewed it again...in full screen and it looks like regular "bumping" to me or walking on the bottom as usually done by octopuses roaming the seafloor or getting their prey to their lair. The bi-pedal locomotion shown that iv seen has the octopus with only 2 arms clearly walking, while the rest of the body is straight, erect and frozen...the other arms are curled tightly together and is usually done to escape predators without too much notice. This however looks like natural body movement to me done by all octopuses. The Ultimate Guide Octopus shows a brief clip of the technique of bumping.

 

[tonmo]

ah... OK, I'll look into "bumping"... not sure I'd know the difference so will educate myself...

 

[joefish84]

even if it is bumbing or whatever he did stand up erect on 2 legs many times and one time he did it and waved at me.

 

[tonmo]

Yeah, I'm not able to find anything on "bumping" -- not sure what's being referred to here... but I do know in that a couple of the other videos I've seen, the octopus does appear to be curled up in a ball, and the two arms used for "walking" do seem to be more extended than Joefish's bimac. But I think in this context it's a fairly minor difference -- this bimac here appears to be putting one arm in front of the other, pushing them against the ground, using two arms, and that's how he's travelling from one spot to the other -- much like walking. To Armstrong's point, I've seen more stark examples, but from my own observation (for whatever it's worth), I'd put it in the same category as the others: "walking" behavior.