Varys' babies (O. mercatoris)

Animal Mother;121454 said:
Einy would reach out to my finger when I touched the glass. Pretty sure he was just checking to see if it was food though.

Hah! He wasn't "checking"... every merc knows that fingers are food! :razz:

All four of the 'podes were out and about last night... here's two clips of Shelby stalking through the red macro algae:
 
Mercs at play

We've been trying something new with the 'podes...

We gave them a crab in a jar to see what they would do. The first night, nobody seemed willing to approach. The second night was a different story...

Choose "Octopus mercatoris interactions" from our video library on youtube... this is the only way we could post a link that would allow everyone to see the new caption feature... directly imbedding it didn't include the captions. There's some loss of picture quality with the conversions, but I think you can follow the action! :wink:
http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=gdholland
 
Thank you both!
We've had these guys 4.5 months now, whereas we had Varys for only 3 (part of which was spent brooding). Having four captive-raised mercs together in a communal tank has definitely been more fun than our first month with Varys (wild-caught) was. (Although D's Trapper seemed to be a very interactive wildling.) These four are getting less shy and more bold every night. They've started appearing as early as10:30 p.m. with the room lights still on (the tank is still red-lighted though). They've also been staying up later, sometimes as late as 10:00 a.m. while sunlight is coming through the windows next to their tank.

A few new pics:
The first is Beluga stealing my pipette again... I can't help myself, I love this behavior. The second is Beluga with "his" webbing wrapped around three frozen mysis and the third is a closeup of Shelby showing off suckers. A couple of suckers look larger than the rest, but I'm not sure if it's definitive or if they are just larger because they are the ones actually stuck to the glass and spread out a bit. Any thoughts? Still can't get a good view of the 3rd arm tip or trailing edge...
 
Any thoughts? Still can't get a good view of the 3rd arm tip or trailing edge...
IME you will never see the tip that shows masculinity. Even after death it is hard to see. What you will see soon is the curled up arm and the enlarged suckers will become more obvious. My guess is that in another month you will know if you have a female because she will find a brooding place and stay their most of the time. The guys will roam about the tank with one arm curled.
 
Here's a compilation with two clips of Shelby and the crab jar on the third night... the lid is a snap on, but you can see that she turns it quite a bit as she explores. She might actually have a chance with a screw-on lid once she gets comfortable with the jar.
 
Proportionally the jar is too large. Try a smaller jar if you want your little octopus to open a screw-on lid. I think the mercs can do it!

Nancy
 
You may be right Nancy. The diameter is okay because Shelby clearly turns the shaker top, but it may be too tall. We picked up a much smaller plastic jar today and will have to give it a try.

Here's another compilation with two clips of Beluga interacting as I move my finger outside the glass and one of Shelby interacting (trying to eat me) as I move my finger inside the glass. :sagrin:
 
Short clip with a cute interaction at the end where Beluga reaches out to Shelby. I made the mistake of feeding the 'podes some big shrimp the night before last so they weren't as intent on the crab in the jar last night... they were more interested in each other. :hmm:
 
gholland;121789 said:
When you say "curled", are we talking just the tip of the arm, or a majority of it? They all regularly curl just the tips of every arm right now.

Whole arm. I went through some of my pics but this and this is the best I could find. Now I am beginning to wonder if the curl on the arm is as obvious as it is in the larger species. Octane keeps that arm curled all the time. My picture review shows that this is not the case with the Mercs and I remember posting seeing the large suckers on Medusa when he became sexually mature and never mentioned the arm curl, so it may not be as consistent as I thought.
 
Here's a compilation with two clips of Shelby and the crab jar on the third night... the lid is a snap on, but you can see that she turns it quite a bit as she explores. She might actually have a chance with a screw-on lid once she gets comfortable with the jar.

That is just incredible. I never would have even thought to try a jar with the little guys. Interesting that I don't think there is any TONMO videos of any octos going inside the food jar, just poking arms in (I know AM tried to convince Kalypso to go inside and he would have nothing to do with the idea).
 
I don't have video of it, but at least a couple of our batch went inside as babies (< 1 month old). Same jar with frozen mysis in it. Of course there's no way to know now if any of those are among the 4 survivors.
 

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