octopets

[j_man]

What species are the ones on octo pets? and secondly what is there average lifespan. And what available cephlapod has the longest life span?

 

[Feelers]

Octopets carries O. Bimaculoides or "Bimacs".

The longest lived available ceph is the Nautilus - dont go there , requires a huge tank and chiller and lots of research.

Check out this if you havent already...... Cephalopod Care

to Tonmo, do lots of reading, there's heaps of info on this site.

 

[cthulhu77]

Even under the best of care, cephalopods are short lived in captivity...be sure this is something you really want to undertake prior to trying !

 

[nini]

O. Bimaculoides have a life span of 12-18 months, there life span may depend on the temperature of the water and their enviornment.

 

[Armstrong]

Incase you were wondering also...the longest lived octopus species is generally the Giant pacific with an average lifespan of about 2 1/2 to 3 yrs. Otherwise theirs the arctic octopus living up to 6 yrs...but thats WAY beyond the limits, lol. They live up north in the deep depths of the cold ocean.

 

[DHyslop]

That 12-18 months for a bimac sounds good on paper, but I believe the longest that a bimac has lived for anyone on here is around 8-10 months? If anyone has had a different experience, I'm sure they'll correct me.

Dan

 

[dbrooks]

That 12-18 months for a bimac sounds good on paper, but I believe the longest that a bimac has lived for anyone on here is around 8-10 months? If anyone has had a different experience, I'm sure they'll correct me.

Dan

WOW! Is that really the case?! I was hoping for at least a 12 month ROI...

 

[oceanbound]

also bimacs, if farm raised, are said to be relatively hardy. i mean as much as any octo can be hardy.lol

 

[Nancy]

The first generation of Tonmo bimacs that I kept records on had three bimacs that lasted 10 months or more. Since they were wild caught,they tended to be a bit older when they arrived, too. My Ollie was 3-4 months old when she came (my estimate) and lived about 10 months, so that would make her 13-14 months old when she died.

No one here on Tonmo has been able to keep a bimac in a tank for much more than 10 months and this corresponds to the experiences of other bimac keepers before Tonmo.

I don't know where the "1 1/2 years" comes from - can't seen to track it down.

Nancy

 

[TidePool Geek]

Howdy,

Cephbase shows "Age at Maturity" for O. bimaculoides as 341 days:

http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/spdb/lifehistory.cfm?CephID=508

Unfortunately I can't find what they define as Maturity. If they mean sexual maturity, it's not unreasonable to assume they've got a total lifespan on the order of 12 to 15 months since octos don't necessarily breed immediately on 'coming of age'. Even if a bimac did breed as soon as possible, it's also known that females can delay fertilization for a fairly long time while waiting for optimum conditions to lay their eggs.

Since Octopets ships their bimacs at a pretty young age it seems possible that there could be a bit of extra life extension while the animal is waiting for Mr/Ms Right to come along.

Temperature does affect both lifespan and growth rate. Here's a paper on the subject:
http://www.cephbase.utmb.edu/Tcp/pdf/Wood99.pdf
Here's a quote from that paper:
*****************************
Octopus bimaculoides
kept at 23 °C had their life span shortened by about
20% but were three times larger when 5 months old
compared to octopuses raised at 18 °C (Forsythe and
Hanlon 1988).
*****************************
Hope this helps.

Agedly yours,

Alex