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.
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.