octo ID needed

TQN

O. bimaculoides
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Jun 27, 2007
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Picked this little one up from the LFS a couple days ago, and it has settled in and is doing well. The pics should give a good idea of size/proportions, but here are my estimates on measurements: mantle is about 3/4", and arms are a little less than 2" from base to tip. Total legspan is right around 4". It came in with a shipment from Indo.
Thanks in advance for any ID help!
 

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Thanks, Sedna! It is a cute little one. I have my hands full with cuttles, but I could not resist taking this octo home when I saw it. At the LFS, it was being housed in a small plastic cup, as it had already escaped a Critter Keeper by squeezing out through the slots in the lid :shock:
This thing is just beyond tiny!

I have not noticed a clear pattern of activity yet, so I can't tell for sure whether it is diurnal or nocturnal. It hides most of the time, but I have seen it out exploring a couple times during both day and night. It is probably still settling in and getting used to its new home, but I am keeping an eye on it to see if i can figure out a pattern...
 

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The arms don't look ropey enough (untapered) to me for briareus but comparing some of AM's pictures of a young Kalypso shows a lot of similarity. Who COULD resist such a cute little fella though?
 
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Thanks everybody, for your input! It does look a lot like briareus, but it is definitely from Indo. So it will be interesting to see what it turns out to be...
I still have not been able to determine any clear activity patterns yet, but it did accept a couple PE mysis from my hand last night :cool2:
So far, I have not seen any real color/pattern/texture changes with this little guy. It always stays the same smooth, unpatterned red/brown, and the iridescence only seems to show up in photos.
 
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I'd say something in the macropus complex, and it does look like O. luteus. The mantle shape matches and the amount of webbing looks about right too. The darker red is one of their base colors, and you'll probably see a whiter coloring at night if it is O. luteus. Have you seen any blue spots? Nice pics!
 
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The first macropus (that did not survive) I tried to keep did not have the longer, thicker front arms of the luteus. If my guess that she was already full grown is correct and this is the same, it will will grow to be a good aquarium sized animal and not be a problem sizewise. Unfortunately, she died the day she arrived so I have no additional info.

The speckled underside is not something I see with Beldar (luteus) or in the pictures of the first one and have noticed as a trait in O. hummelincki (this is not hummelincki) but I don't know if the speckling is a reliable trait to use for octopus ID markings. The absence of the speckling on Serendipity is one of three observations that make me think there is a second two spot Caribbean octopus.
 
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gholland;134077 said:
Like maybe O. maya?

No, much too large (but one I have wondered about for the aquarium) and I believe they are found on the western part of the Gulf (Dipity was from the keys, by-catch from Ken's live rock). I have been trying to find the source I read that showed filosus originally classified as dwarf. It was reclassified as not dwarf and named hummelincki because there were too many references using filosus and the definition became unclear. My very uneducated guess is that filosus was a dwarf that looks almost exactly like hummelincki (much like the two bimac species). What could make it interesting is the consideration that the big difference in the bimacs is the eggs size. We know hummelincki is small egged and I have confirmed that the differences I saw were not in the one hummelincki female on TOMNO that had a successful egg hatch ... just thinkin' (wishin'?):sagrin:
 
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