Newbie with octo questions

[April]

Hi all,
I recently purchased an octopus from my LFS. It had been there for about a month and was eating well. She seems to think it is an octopus cyaneuse. Googling that doesn't get me much. Are there any specifics to this species that I should know?

BTW, her answer as to why she thought it was this species was due to where she believes it was captured, and it looked like the pic. I don't know what pic. It was something she found in a book. Anything else I can tell you about it for a more positive ID?

 

[tonmo]

Hi April,

Welcome to TONMO.com! Your best bet will be to post a picture of your octo... it will be hard for folks here to try to provide an ID without an image. But you've come to the right place!

 

[April]

Are there any particular spots I should try to get, such as underneath, or eyes, or whatever? I know on seahorses the identifying marks are the head, chest, and color patches. What are the indentifying marks for octopusses? Also, would some sort of size marker help?

 

[monty]

to TONMO, I'm sure some of our folks can help identify your octo...

 

[mucktopus]

The most useful shots are whole body and mantle (body sac) shots from above or the side. It's difficult to ID an octopus from the sucker view, so in most cases pics of the animal glued to the side of the tank aren't hugely informative.

 

[April]

OK, I'll see what I can do. Is there a link somewhere that tells me how to post pics?

 

[Graeme]

You can distinguish octopus species by the suckers though. Although it's not exactly foolproof! Eledone cirrhosa only have one row of suckers on their arm, for instance.
You can post pictures by going into the picture galleries, and following the directions. It's very easy, as long as you save a version of you picture as a Jpeg although it should be that already!

Graeme

 

[mucktopus]

True- but I was just considering the role of suckers in identifying the common aquarium species- all of which have two rows of suckers (unless Eledone do show up sometimes?). The placement of enlarged suckers can help ID octos if you're having trouble telling the difference between very similarly shaped and colored octos, but that's not likely to be a huge problem here.

The sucker shot is very useful though when trying to sex the octo.

 

[Graeme]

Hmm, I doubt Eledone would end up as a private collection animal (unless potential owner has plenty of rooM!) as, even if it's not a big octopus, it's far from small, compared to others! I dunno if you can buy them as pets. You're right, though, mucktopus.

Graeme

 

[mucktopus]

Hmm, I doubt Eledone would end up as a private collection animal
Graeme

Phew! I thought I was out of the loop on what people were trying to keep!

 

[Andy Lister]

They'd be ace to keep though... very sociable. I've kept 6 together before and they all got on very very well.

You'd need a pretty impressive chiller though, especially in the US; Greame... you could probably be ok for temp being in the worlds coldest place... slightly ahead of me here in Manc! Haha