Im just remember my first encounter with an octopus, I was on a trip in costa rica with a school science group, and I found an octopus in a tide pool. Its body was about the size of a baseball and I think it was reddish brown. It was not hiding but moving around, probably hunting, and it was daytime, around noon. Can anyone guess what kind of octopus this may have been? Costa rica area, not nocturnal, not a pygmy, hunts in tide pools so not deep water...
can anyone ID a species for me?
- Thread starter Rudiger
- Start date
cephalopoder
Premium Member
Hey Pat
The octopus you saw was most likely octopus.hubbsorum or octopus.mimus, most likely the first of the two. I spent two weeks this past summer researcing octopuses in Costa Rica.We were located in the bat islands and found O.hubbsorum was the dominat species there for intertidal octopus. It takes on a redish brown color and I even have some great video footage. O.mimus is red as well but larger in size. We could frequently find hubbsorum in tidepools at night or sitting in their den entrace during the day. They are shallow water octos and most were captured by hand in severl feet of water. A very cool octopus!
chris\
ps..did you get the email I sent you?
The octopus you saw was most likely octopus.hubbsorum or octopus.mimus, most likely the first of the two. I spent two weeks this past summer researcing octopuses in Costa Rica.We were located in the bat islands and found O.hubbsorum was the dominat species there for intertidal octopus. It takes on a redish brown color and I even have some great video footage. O.mimus is red as well but larger in size. We could frequently find hubbsorum in tidepools at night or sitting in their den entrace during the day. They are shallow water octos and most were captured by hand in severl feet of water. A very cool octopus!
chris\
ps..did you get the email I sent you?
cephalopoder
Premium Member
Hubb's octopus, is the common name. Mimus has no common name. Hubbsorum would be a great octopus to keep the home aquarium. They are the same size as a bimac roughly , day active for the most part and didn't seem prone to crawl out of our research tanks we kept them in.
chris
chris
OctoMonkey
New member
Chris,
i am interested to hear (read
) more about your trip to Costa Rica, was it purely for ceph watching? How did you get involved in that?
I almost got to go to Costa Rica last year courtesy of IMAX but I think they changed their minds on the storyline or something? They wanted 50 or so shield preying mantis? cant remeber the Latin name Hylamantis or something, it was almost set to go but they pulled out. It was supposed to be for a 3D film.
C
i am interested to hear (read
) more about your trip to Costa Rica, was it purely for ceph watching? How did you get involved in that?I almost got to go to Costa Rica last year courtesy of IMAX but I think they changed their minds on the storyline or something? They wanted 50 or so shield preying mantis? cant remeber the Latin name Hylamantis or something, it was almost set to go but they pulled out. It was supposed to be for a 3D film.
C
cephalopoder
Premium Member
Colin
The trip I went on was first posted on ceph list and was put on by Dr John Cigliano though earthwatch. I spent about 15 days down there and had a blast! I went down about 5 days early of the expedition so I could explore alitte on my own.
I was climbing volcanos, whitewater rafting, hiking though jungles, burning down zip lines, catching poison arrow frogs .. I had so much fun the first half I didn't want the second half to begin lol.
There were two other ceph listes on the trip, Jimbo and mark lanett. The second half we stayed at a dry tropical reseach station for a night and Jimbo and I led a night time expedition of our own into the jungle armed with video and flash lights. We saw loads of hairy mygalomorphs, wolf spiders with young, whip scorpians, scorpians, baby snakes,cane toads man it was a bug lovers paradise lol.
The hi light of that night was when jim snagged a 5 foot boa off a shed while I filmed the event and brought it into camp as a surpride lol. You could see the look on the expedition leaders face turn to concern knowing his hands were full with us two catching every crawling thing we could find lol.
After that we soon headed out to the bat islands where we stayed on a private reearch island protected from the public. We spent the next 6 days diving and snorkleing for octopuses. I was so excited to be there I shot down to the beach right after dinner the first night armed with a flash light and bottle of gatorade and caught the first octo of the trip and brought it back to the lab. Cigiano was psyched! We spent the rest of the week catching octos, collecting miden piles and running transit lines.
We collected 3 different species overall and every one came home unharmed. I look forward to going to Costa Rica again some day. Colin you would love it there. So when are we going lol.
The trip I went on was first posted on ceph list and was put on by Dr John Cigliano though earthwatch. I spent about 15 days down there and had a blast! I went down about 5 days early of the expedition so I could explore alitte on my own.
I was climbing volcanos, whitewater rafting, hiking though jungles, burning down zip lines, catching poison arrow frogs .. I had so much fun the first half I didn't want the second half to begin lol.
There were two other ceph listes on the trip, Jimbo and mark lanett. The second half we stayed at a dry tropical reseach station for a night and Jimbo and I led a night time expedition of our own into the jungle armed with video and flash lights. We saw loads of hairy mygalomorphs, wolf spiders with young, whip scorpians, scorpians, baby snakes,cane toads man it was a bug lovers paradise lol.
The hi light of that night was when jim snagged a 5 foot boa off a shed while I filmed the event and brought it into camp as a surpride lol. You could see the look on the expedition leaders face turn to concern knowing his hands were full with us two catching every crawling thing we could find lol.
After that we soon headed out to the bat islands where we stayed on a private reearch island protected from the public. We spent the next 6 days diving and snorkleing for octopuses. I was so excited to be there I shot down to the beach right after dinner the first night armed with a flash light and bottle of gatorade and caught the first octo of the trip and brought it back to the lab. Cigiano was psyched! We spent the rest of the week catching octos, collecting miden piles and running transit lines.
We collected 3 different species overall and every one came home unharmed. I look forward to going to Costa Rica again some day. Colin you would love it there. So when are we going lol.
You did a night expedition into the jungle too? When I went to costa rica two years ago with my school group we stayed two nights at this camp right on the beach. A friend and I snuck away at night to explore the jungle (probably not the smartest thing to do...) we found a pack of spider monkeys, a sloth, and even witnessed a jesus lizard run across a small river But then I got scared that I was going to get mauled by a wild pig so we went back to camp
Another time on the trip we were swimming in the ocean, and if you went out to where the water was about at your neck you could find hundreds of sand dollars. You could grab them with your toes and then pick them up.
I would have loved to go hunting for octos but at the time I didnt have my ceph interest.
But then I got scared that I was going to get mauled by a wild pig so we went back to camp Another time on the trip we were swimming in the ocean, and if you went out to where the water was about at your neck you could find hundreds of sand dollars. You could grab them with your toes and then pick them up.
I would have loved to go hunting for octos but at the time I didnt have my ceph interest.
OctoMonkey
New member
Hey Chris, in all seriousness, and as soon as I learn how to scuba I am all up for that! Do you know I visited Trinidad and Tobago eleven times and not once was the schedule flexible enough for me to snorkle over the reefs at Tobago
The pipa frogs I located in Trinidad last year were on the TV last night over here.....BBC Bristol's "Weird Nature". All that work and they were only on for about 1min at most lol. the peripatus should be on soon.........maybe next week......
Sounds like CR is a good place to go. Let me have a go at learning how to scuba first.......
Colin
The pipa frogs I located in Trinidad last year were on the TV last night over here.....BBC Bristol's "Weird Nature". All that work and they were only on for about 1min at most lol. the peripatus should be on soon.........maybe next week......
Sounds like CR is a good place to go. Let me have a go at learning how to scuba first.......
Colin
