1 month octo update....

[goodman770]

Well, I've had my Bimac now for about a month. I would like to first ask how often are Octo's supposed to eat? Mine would eat every day if I put things in there. His overall size is fairly small. Like everyone else, I'm amazed at his color changing abilities. Of particular interest is how his fake eye changes blue. Just really neat.
Second, I had read on here that claws from cray fish and crabs would be no problem, but I was skeptical. Let me know if you guys think I'm off on this, but it seems to me that the Octo first controls it's prey before trying to eat it. I put in a crayfish twice the size of my little guy, with both claws, and it was not even a challange. He simply controls the claws with his suckers/arms and then proceeds to do whatever it is he does. Most of the time he takes the prey into his cave so I don't get to see exactly what goes on.
Does anyone else have any other interesting observations?
Bill

[OctoMonkey]

Hi Bill,
yeah, the cuttlefish is actually easier to watch when it comes to overpowering a crab. They manage to hold onto the back of the crab's carapace (cephalothorax) and keep their arms out of the way of the claws!

Any other food item they just grab any old way, with crabs they position themselves behind the crab first so they miss the jaggy end!

I'll see if I can get that on MPEG since I have crabs to find him just now.... let you know....

C

[goodman770]

Thanks Colin. One more quick question. When I first got this Octo, I watched him eat a hermit. It looked as though he formed a suction around the shell with his body, and used a vaccume to pull him out. At some point it looked like he put a tentacle in there, without breaking the seal and just pulled him out at that point. Does this sound accurate to you?
Thanks,
Bill

[OctoMonkey]

Yep, almost..... but the octo will have bitten it at some point and killed the crab. Perhaps it manages to pull out just enough to bite a leg joint or claw joint to envenomate the prey? Hermits are impossible to pull out!

I dont think brute force would pull it out as a crab can drop claws when it wants/needs to (autotomy i think?)

depending on species, some may even drill the shell perhaps like what they do with snails?????

C

[cephalopoder]

I have actually seem some of my octos pull the hermit from the shell while it was still alive. It pretty funny to watch kind of like a tug o war contest. If they cant they will bite them and inject their venom and then pull them out of their shells. I have seel my mantis shrimp pull them from the shell alive as well.
chris

[Rudiger]

My dwarf octopus pulled a good sized hermit crab out of its shell, not sure if it was alive or not, but with smaller blue legs she would drill the shells to get the hermits out. But when she went after the big hermit crab she did what you were describing. She completly covered the opening with all her arms and somehow pulled it out with her beak or possibley an arm.

pat