Surprise! It's a Mimic!

[davelin315]

Here are some photos that my daughter took, still trying to figure out the settings for a good underwater photo through glass with a lot of "noise" in the form of microbubbles in the water.

22 new items by davelin315

photos.app.goo.gl

 

[DWhatley]

Not sure if I enjoyed watching an exotic or listening to the father-daughter dialog the most

 

[tonmo]

And here's the video of the pounce.

Wow, so cool - looks happy! What species is that curious fish in the first minute or so of the video?

Not sure if I enjoyed watching an exotic or listening to the father-daughter dialog the most

It's a mimic video AND a photography lesson!

 

[sedna]

I love the way octopuses encourage family togetherness!!! So cool to hear you & your daughter working together!

 

[davelin315]

@tonmo , it's a green sailfin molly. These are naturally brackish fish that have been sold for a long time as freshwater fish but I get them in as feeders and toss them into one of my tanks at full salinity. I normally only lose a few from shipping stress and none from the sudden acclimation stress. This is one of the females that remains from a group I got in about 6-9 months ago perhaps? They slowly get picked off by newborn shark pups and are enrichment for them. I have a great video of one being grabbed by maybe a 6" shark pup but it eventually lets it go (it doesn't make it) after it is unable to bite through the body and sever the tail. They also produce babies that populate the sump and other tanks connected to the system while also supplying other animals with a live food source to boot on top of grazing on algae in the system. They are quite beautiful to be honest and sometimes I feel bad when they get slammed by something but they seem to do better than any other types of fish (all of the sailfin mollies do well) and are usually the cheapest to buy in bulk.

 

[tonmo]

very cool tank.

 

[davelin315]

Out and about today, immediately took the emerald crab that I dropped into the tank. She also seems to have eaten a Cerith snail or a hermit crab (the shell in the bottom left of the photo) as well as having eaten a ninja star Astrea snail the other day. Those arms are kind of odd in their shape but I have nothing to compare it to in terms of other Mimics. Hard to understand what I'm doing right versus what I'm doing wrong with so little info out there on them in captivity!

 

[DWhatley]

Clearly some things right since the missing tip is growing back in stead of other tip missing. Eating is always a good sign (opposite of the Korean animals that we have -- now -- both attempted). You might try some of the baby mollies in stead of the adult but I am a firm believer in NO fish. Fish do not seem to be a natural diet for any of the octopuses and are reluctantly eaten when accepted (we have seen some examples where they were killed and not eaten or killed and only the stomachs consumed).

 

[Tomh]

Amazing!!!

 

[davelin315]

I filmed her again, this time for about 45 minutes while she moved around. Got a nice view of her as she spread out. Enjoy the photos of her showing off (at least from our perspective), I'm uploading the videos now and it will take awhile before they are ready.

First, her midden heap (or mess as it may be since she doesn't really have a den and simply eats out in the open.

 

[davelin315]

@DWhatley Where did you find them? I haven't seen them for years. The stores around here stopped buying them, at least the ones that I was finding them at. Glad they stopped importing them but at the same time would have liked to have continued to try for success with them.

 

[davelin315]

@DWhatley from what I have read fish are a part of their natural diet but the only accounts of mimics in captivity have pretty much said that they sometimes ignored the fish. I do have 2 babies (one is missing but it also could have easily gone through the overflow screen as it ended up in the tank originally from having taken a ride down an overflow and then back up through a pump!) in there but I believe they are too small to be noticed. The fish seems to annoy her more than anything else at this point.

 

[davelin315]

Some enormous photos of her up close. Just a teaser.

 

[davelin315]

And finally the full shots. She really is quite beautiful and was displaying the pattern that I think most people associate with mimics. You can clearly see the white V on the bottom of her abdomen, the white line along the margin between the top of each arm and the suckers, as well as they long flattened arms and the single cirri above each eye.

 

[davelin315]

One of the things I have found fascinating about her so far is that she's pretty much transparent. Her mantle is very thin and when the arms are spread out if you look from the bottom up you can see right through her mantle, moreso than any other octopus I have had. She does not seem to mind my presence at all but I am still trying to not interact with her other than observing and pushing crabs in her direction to get some good video.

Also, there are conflicting thoughts out there on whether they are nocturnal, crepuscular, or actually diurnal with some stories saying that they are diurnal in captivity. I so far, all 2 days I have had her, have observed her to be "diurnal" in the sense that she's out when the lights are on and was hidden away when I looked for her in the morning before the lights turned on.