Sepiolid burying behavior

Neogonodactylus

Haliphron Atlanticus
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Mar 17, 2003
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662


I posted this video on TONMO, but I'm not sure how you find it, so I'm also providing the YouTube address.

During our recent work on Lizard Island (North Queensland) we caught three of these small bottletailed squid. The smallest was 1.5 cm and the largest just over 2 cm. All three were taken at night (no moon) using a dive light. They were from sandy areas with patch reefs (1 - 17 m). I don't recall collecting this species before, but they were apparently common this August.

Like many sepiolids, they employ two arms to bury themselves in sand, but couple this with blasts of water from the funnel fore and aft. Also, when exposed they assume a characteristic orange color, but as they bury in the sand, they turn black and white.

Roy
 
I've attached another video clip of Sepiadarium kochi burying itself in sand. Here you can see both the jets of water being jetted below the animal and the use of the arms to throw up sand.


 
Thanks Starvos, the article would be a good thing to examine for keeping some of the exotics but I was hoping for more of a preference definition for octos. I have noticed that the octos I keep will remove the argonite from their den areas if they choose a ground level den (and have two rather humerous videos of sand rearrangement by senescent animals) and was hoping for a substrate of choice type article. I might have to experiment with a bare bottom tank to see if an octopus would be out more offen without sand - you have definitely started me thinking :biggrin2:. I wonder if I can clear a section of Little Bit's tank :hmm:
 
Neogonodactylus;181584 said:
I've attached another video clip of Sepiadarium kochi burying itself in sand. Here you can see both the jets of water being jetted below the animal and the use of the arms to throw up sand.



Still amazed by this video Roy!
 

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