octopus climbing out of tanks

On Apr 15, 10:20 am, "Nehmo" wrote:
At this point, there's no evidence of fish missing or wet floors. Yes,
people make things up. And people often elaborate on a true fact. I
believe octopuses open lids of aquariums. That's plausible. But
steeling from another aquarium and returning to their own, I'm afraid
it's an urban myth.

I would like to believe otherwise. As soon as you find some evidence,
let me know please.


Cynicism is the last refuge of the cynical.

P.

"Don Geddis" wrote in message
...
"Nehmo" wrote on 13 Apr 2007 03:1:
I'm beginning to conclude the traveling-oct story has no truth to it.
Since plenty of people keep them as aquarium subjects, behavior as
bizarre as this would have been better documented by now.


Yea I agree,
sure they might grab things in a close by tank
but they aint very good at crosscountry
and they suck at climbing tanks and getting BACK INTO THEM.
usually ya get an ink spot on ya floor where they die
:-(


Have you read any advice about keeping octopuses as in home tanks? They
*all* say that it's an absolute requirements to have a secured, locked lid
on
top of the tank. Octopusus are well known for being able to escape out of
supposedly-secure tanks, through any opening no bigger than their beaks.
They can definitely unscrew jar lids, unlatch locks, and walk across dry
land.

'walk accross dry land'
I think not.
They can drag themselves from rockpool to rockpool
but walk they cannot.


There's really no question that this is possible, even common. Get
yourself
an octopus, put it in an open tank, put on a night-vision camera, and I'm
sure you can make the video you wish within days or perhaps even hours.


Actually I often have to remove lids from octopus tanks in summer as it gets
hot here.
It is a rare thing for an octopus to leave a tank if it's happy in there and
got lots of live food.
Why is my experience so different? I don't know but I can say that if an
ocky wants to escape they are good at it....
just don't seem to want to very often.



In public aquaria (which have huge tanks, huge octopuses, and are
difficult to
fully secure in 3D), the keep-them-in-their-cage trick seems to be
astroturf.
For reasons that aren't fully understood, octopuses don't seem to like to
walk
across astroturf. So the big open tanks that have octopuses in them tend
to
have a foot or two of astroturf border nailed around the top rim.

astroturf will rot in time
I have found the plastic canvas strips to works well
altho I did glue velcro straps onto the tank to attach it with.....
heh
that said they don't usually try escape
and when they do they are hard to stop



But they are strange and probably smarter than we give them credit for.

There are lots of experiments involving puzzle-solving with octopuses.
Opening sealed jars with food inside, escaping from tanks, etc. They're
pretty well known to be among the most intelligent animals in the world
(like dolphins, whales, dogs, monkeys, etc.).

Also (vaguely related), for fun, don't miss the "Octopus vs. Shark" video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4dV6upaCvo



anyway www.tonmo.com is a good spot for ceph info
great pets they are
great pets



__________________________________________________ _____________________________
Don Geddis
http://reef.geddis.org/
The only use of Tae Kwon Leep is self defense. Do you know who said that?
Ki Lo Nee, the great teacher. -- "Boot to the Head", The Frantics

"R H Draney" wrote in message
...
Pushmi-Pullyu filted:

http://www.faculty.uaf.edu/ffrsb/out...elligence.html
"In 1873, a stock of young lump-fish in the Brighton Aquarium began
to slowly diminish for no apparent reason. Almost daily, there was one
less fish in the tank and no clues as to what had happened. One early
morning the mystery was solved when an aquarium official found an
octopus in the lump fishes' tank. The octopus somehow had discovered
that the fish were in an adjoining tank, and had thereafter raided it
nightly. To avoid detection, every night after its meal, the octopus
would return to its tank looking innocent of any wrong doing. But this
was not the end. After its capture, the octopus seemed to know that it
was being watched, so it remained in its tank for a week. Then one
night, two octopuses climbed out of the tank, the previous offender
and another, moved in opposite directions, both avoiding the adjacent
tanks and entered those beyond. Unfortunately for both octopuses, one
found itself in a tank with several over-sized crabs and the other
with a giant lobster."

There are two parts of this story that bother me more than the idea that
an
octopus might travel from one tank to another...to wit:


Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.



a) "somehow had discovered" - I'd love to know how that happened...did
one just
get out of its tank on a lark and happen to stumble across the tank full
of
yummy edible fish?...

b) "looking innocent of any wrong doing" - intelligent I'll give you, but
how
well does the body language of guilt and shame transfer across a
species-gap
like that?...

Elsethread someone mentions "cephalopod porn"...I've seen video shot in
the
aftermath of a deep-sea vent opening and raising the local temperature, in
which
many species multiplied and grew prolifically...one brief sequence shows a
pair
of octopuses [1] fondling each other...the narrator points out that not
only are
they of two completely different species, but they're both male....

R H "does octopus hentai involve tentacles too?" Draney

[1] http://members.cox.net/bagelhenge/octo.jpg


--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"

"Tidepool Geek" wrote in message
ups.com...
Howdy,

Octopuses are often very accomplished escape artists and crawling
across a few feet of dry surface is within the capabilities of a large
one; I'm sure that the distance capability would be related as much to
size as to species. That said, I'm also sure that when an octo climbs
out of the water its number one priority becomes finding some other
water to climb into, available food would be a side issue.

What is fairly common is for an octo to 'visit' other tanks via shared
plumbing. Unscreened drain lines especially are plenty big enough for
even a good sized GPO to fit. I'm not aware of any video but there are
numerous stories from public aquariums in the Pacific Northwest of
GPO's sneaking into an adjoining tank for a crab dinner and then
returning to its own tank and den.

I very much doubt that an octopus would be bothered by finding itself
in a tank with large crab or lobster, both of which are prey items for
octos. They might be too big for a given octo to capture and eat but
it's pretty unlikely that they'd present any threat either.

BTW: Here's a link to a Google video (39 seconds) of an octopus
escaping through a one inch hole:
http://video.google.com:80/videoplay...16107763801953

Regarding the "food in a jar" trick: As I understand it, the original
experiment was carried out in the wild and went something like this:

1. A researcher using SCUBA located and developed a rapport with one
particular Octopus (I vaguely recall that it was in the Mediterranean)
by feeding it shrimp.

2. One day the researcher showed the octo the shrimp, put the shrimp
in a jar, closed the jar with a cork, and gave the jar to the octo.
The octo took several minutes to figure out how to open the jar and
then ate the shrimp.

3. The experiment was repeated several days later and the octo opened
the jar almost immediately; possibly demonstrating memory or the
ability to learn an artificial task.

4. On a subsequent repetition of the experiment the researcher showed
the shrimp to the octo whereupon the octo swam into the jar and waited
for his meal!

At the Feiro Marine Life Center, where I volunteer, we would give our
smaller GPO (tip to tip arm-span ~ 4 or 5 feet) a squid in an old
peanut butter jar (clean of course) with a plastic screw top lid. On
the first try it took her about five minutes to get to her meal;
subsequently she would remove the lid in under a minute.
Unfortunately, one of our staff decided to give her a crab as a treat
and thereafter she completely lost interest in squid - in or out of
the jar. We also tried the jar on our larger GPO (5 or 6 feet tip to
tip) and she also managed to figure it out but there was no repetition
after we learned how difficult it was to retrieve the empty jar from
her den. [Her tank is almost five feet deep.]






"
As to escape proofing an octopus tank - Ya gotta do it! Nine times out
of ten escaping means a death sentence for the animal since they're
most likely to try when there isn't anyone around to put them back.
"

Couldn't agree more!!!
Great post by the way.





I
don't know if this is just Murphy's Law or a case of the octopus
waiting for everyone to leave. Having said that, the likelihood of an
escape attempt seems related to species and individual personality. O.
rubescens has a reputation as being an absolute demon escape artist,
probably because they've evolved to sometimes live in the intertidal
region - they don't find being out of water to be nearly as traumatic
as do some other species. OTOH: The popular O. bimaculoides (the Two-
Spot octo) seems to be far less likely to escape. The Enteroctopus
dofleini (GPO's) that we keep each year all seem to react differently
to captivity; some absolutely hate it and are constantly trying to
escape while others seem to think that free food and no predators is a
pretty sweet deal. [We return the unhappy ones to the wild as soon as
their dissatisfaction becomes apparent.]

About the two male octopuses "fondling" each other: I'd be very
surprised if, in reality, they weren't trying to work out who was
going to 'have' dinner and who was going to 'be' dinner.


Cannibalistically yours,

Alex

swarvegorilla filted:

Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.

Do you talk like this in real life or what?...

R H "and is there any treatment for it?" Draney


--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"

"R H Draney" wrote in message
...
swarvegorilla filted:

Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.

Do you talk like this in real life or what?...

R H "and is there any treatment for it?" Draney


It's called 'Ocka' mate!
Only the chosen few can speak it, gods own t'would seem.
Now if you would prefer the laborious terms wobbegong, octopus and lobster
I can work it it,
but your just making it hard on yourself digger.




--
"You got Schadenfreude on my Weltanschauung!"
"You got Weltanschauung in my Schadenfreude!"

swarvegorilla wrote:
"R H Draney" wrote in message
swarvegorilla filted:
Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.

Do you talk like this in real life or what?...

R H "and is there any treatment for it?" Draney

It's called 'Ocka' mate!
Only the chosen few can speak it, gods own t'would seem.
Now if you would prefer the laborious terms wobbegong, octopus and lobster
I can work it it,
but your just making it hard on yourself digger.

Eh, no real worries (insert "mate" here). You're at least giving evidence, it
seems, based on your firsthand experience, rather than on videos or articles
someone you know says they read. And posting like you talk is most certainly
not the worst thing a person can do.



Dave "that might get you eaten by a grue, however, but we have a small Xpost
allowance in the budget" DeLaney
--
\/David DeLaney posting from "It's not the pot that grows the flower
It's not the clock that slows the hour The definition's plain for anyone to see
Love is all it takes to make a family" - R&P. VISUALIZE HAPPYNET VRbeableBLINK
http://www.vic.com/~dbd/ - net.legends FAQ & Magic / I WUV you in all CAPS! --K.

In article , R H Draney
wrote:

swarvegorilla filted:

Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.

Do you talk like this in real life or what?...

I'm assuming it's Strine. "Crustys" are crabs, "Ockys" are octopodes and
I'm no help with "wobbys" but apparently ockys are afeared of them.

R H "and is there any treatment for it?" Draney

Alas, it may be too late for him/her/it. Prevention says not to learn
speech in .au.

charles, I speaks real good English, bishop

In article ,
"swarvegorilla" wrote:

"R H Draney" wrote in message
...
swarvegorilla filted:

Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.

Do you talk like this in real life or what?...

R H "and is there any treatment for it?" Draney


It's called 'Ocka' mate!
Only the chosen few can speak it, gods own t'would seem.
Now if you would prefer the laborious terms wobbegong, octopus and lobster
I can work it it,
but your just making it hard on yourself digger.

Mind translating wobbegong, just one more time, into a language closer to
English as she is spoke?

charles, mate, bishop

On Mon, 16 Apr 2007 06:45:11 -0700, tt (Charles
Bishop) wrote:

In article ,
"swarvegorilla" wrote:

"R H Draney" wrote in message
...
swarvegorilla filted:

Actually the fact the octopus didn't slaughter the crustys is my problem.
octopus love lobbys
which is why lobbys around here hang in caves with wobbys.
And wobbys love to eat ockys so it all works for every one.

Do you talk like this in real life or what?...

R H "and is there any treatment for it?" Draney


It's called 'Ocka' mate!
Only the chosen few can speak it, gods own t'would seem.
Now if you would prefer the laborious terms wobbegong, octopus and lobster
I can work it it,
but your just making it hard on yourself digger.

Mind translating wobbegong, just one more time, into a language closer to
English as she is spoke?

charles, mate, bishop
wobbegong shark - a number of species of small shark found in coastal
waters off Australia
http://www.amonline.net.au/FISHES/st...cus/gwobbe.htm
http://www.amonline.net.au/fishes/fi...h/oornatus.htm
http://www.marinethemes.com/ornatewobbe.html
http://www.marinethemes.com/tasselledwobbe.html