Octopus Friend

LED

Hatchling
Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
4
Location
Australia, NSW
Greetings,
I am in New South Wales, Australia; I spent a few months last year visiting a couple of octopus that decided to stick around a rocky formation on the shore line (there were others, but these two stayed the longest). I would visit them about 3 or 4 times a week and give them a shrimp and just "hold hands" with them for a while, they seem to like pulling your hand into their little cave and just hang on as long as you will stay. (These two were about 100 meters apart on the rock formation.) They will nibble my hand sometimes with their beak and a couple of times give me a nip that would bleed, but would heal easily. The best I could find on line is that they are called common Sydney octopus. After a while they would come out to greet me when I would show up. Over the summer they disappeared, but about 3 weeks ago they came back and I know that the two I spent a lot of time with are the ones that have come back because of how familiar and relaxed they are with me. A new octopus takes a few weeks before they will freely interact, but these two are the right size and immediately came out to greet me as I approached. I have a 10 minute video of one of the interactions but I am not sure if I can upload it (it is 250megs). I will try. Anyhow, I enjoy visiting them and they seem enjoy me coming. When I offer them the shrimp (I give the shrimp to them first thing), they pretty much ignore the shrimp and want to interact with my hand, so even though they eventually eat the shrimp, it seems that the visit is the most important thing to them. I have included a pic of one about half the size of the two I was speaking of. I will try to upload a video when I get into a better reception area.
 

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Love the eyes on the Gloomy (Octopus tetricus). @haggs has kept a couple in an aquarium and journalled some of his interactions in a local lagoon. He introduced us to one that stayed in the local swimming hole during our visit. Here is one of his recorded adventures. Please consider journalling your own!
 
Here is a 9 minute video of one of our visits.
This is a video of a wild octopus I have visited many times. Last year I spent a lot of time with him but he was gone over the summer; about 5 months. Just lately he has returned to the same little cave and has resumed our friendship. I give him shrimp when I visit but he pretty much ignores the shrimp and is mainly interested in "holding hands". He likes to pull my hand into his cave and just play around with it. Sometimes he nibbles with his beak but does not bite.

20190608_081342.mov
 
When you next meet up, try gently rubbing between the eyes. This seems to be a favorite of many tank held animals.

Ah, I see you did a bit of that near the middle of the video.
 
On my Friday visit to my octopus friend, he was very reserved. It took an unusual amount of encouragement for him to interact with me; he acted like he had encountered someone else that maybe did not treat him so well. Although there are not many people here, this is a public beach and it is unlikely but yet possible for someone to find him. The visit on Saturday found his "den" rearranged and his normal rocks were gone as was himself. He has left for a few days at a time before, but I suspect he has been taken. It is a sad thing that when we humans (as a rule) look at animal life, we see them as food instead of friends. Hopefully he will return, but I am sure his den has been violated and he probably did not leave this time of his own accord.
 

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