octopus ID and info please

[DWhatley]

I am always sad when I have a female because I know the time will be shorter. The live almost as long (my males have out lived my females but supposedly the time is about the same) but as much as 10 weeks of that time is brooding. I have been lucky enough to have had a couple of large egg females to brood viable eggs and was able to raise a few of the young (very low success rate but a couple survived that I raised through adult).

Do watch for eggs with a flashlight. I would suggest trying to remove them if you can catch them early enough as there is not chance of survival. The paper I saw (sadly I did not record where I saw it and need to try to find it again) mentioned that it must be within 24 hours or removing the eggs has no effect.

 

[mreef]

so you are saying that a male, when there is no reproduction, will not really live longer... you will just see him till his last moment, is that right?

it's really sad that they die so fast
I fall in love with octopus with my Little Miss Puddle, they are so fascinating!!
but I'm not sure I'll try again since it's so hard to know if it's a male or female and to know the age of the specimen that you buy (let alone the species)

 

[DWhatley]

Mating, in spite of the literature, is not the reason for decline. As near as we can tell (and forgive my laymen's explanation), the sexual maturation process begins the aging and the optic gland appears to signal time to mature. A couple of studies removed this gland (it does not blind the animal) and they lived twice the normal lifespan (which is still short, the expected lifespan for the size we keep in home aquariums is 12-18 months). Interestingly, if a part of the gland is reimplanted, it starts the maturation process. Removing the gland after maturation starts, however, does not halt the aging.

Males become senescent, as do females but it is less obvious unless they live beyond a normal hatching period, most die within a day or two of a hatching (or the time eggs would hatch if they were not viable) but several species have a slightly different time clock. Both stop eating. Senescent males are known to do unusual things like wander aimlessly or even climb up on land. Most of mine have just stopped eating over about a two week period, become lethargic and no longer interact. I have a video of one male that insisted on moving sand from one end of the tank to the other (Unfortunately, it is no longer available on-line). It is both comical and sad.

There is no question that the hardest part of keeping them is losing them. The only worst scenerio is having an empty tank and likely the reason I keep multiples.