Have you seen this animal?

[Gonodactylus]

Periodically, I put out the word to be on the look out for Octopus chierchiae, a small, striped octopus from the west coast of Central America and Mexico. Several years, I found them frequently in Pamana, but we haven't seen one in 15 years. Should anyone run into one either in the field or in a shipment, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it.

The attached photo was taken in the early 80's of a female that I had in the lab for several months. During that time she laid three clutches of eggs and hatched them.


Roy

 

[cephalopoder]

All members of the expedition team looked for this species on the Costa Rica expedition this past summer with no luck. I am sure if my supplier was to see one , he would call me immediately.
Were you able to rear any of the eggs? Or were they infertile? Do you know what the over all life span for this species was?
chris

 

[Gonodactylus]

Actually, I had several over the years and four collected in one day when I had this one. She mated repeatedly and the eggs were fertile. This is a large egged species and the demersal young started feeding immediately. I'm sure if we could ever find some more, they could be cultured. That is what is so frustrating about this, a species that could provide so much information on reproduction in octopus and we can't find it. As for live span, the longest I had one was six or seven months. My guess is that they live less than year.

Roy

 

[OctoMonkey]

Roy

My importer in the UK is the biggest in europe and i guarantee will also phone me if something like that came in.

a possible lead is that Amblard, a French importer sometimes offer "zebra" octopus, dont know if that might be helpful?

a local shop to me uses Amblard on a frequent basis and he told me about a striped octopus, i asumed mimic or wunderpus, but i suppose that might also fit the name??????

Colin

 

[Gonodactylus]

Colin,

O. chierchiae is a true pygmy with the mantle leght no bigger than 25-30 mm. Most of the animals I had were smaller than a ping pong ball. There is a larger striped species also described from the Eastern Pacific, but we know almost nothing about it. Interestingly, there was reported sister taxa to both of these species in the southwestern Caribbean of Colombia. I have never seen them, but they may still be out there. The striped species such as wonderpus and the mimic coming out of Indonesia and the Philippines are larger, live in sand (O. chierchiae lives in cavities), and probably are in another genus.

Roy

 

[Pandora]

That is truly a gorgeous octo. If they were ever available for shipping, I'd love to get one myself... but with them being so hard to find, wouldn't they be endangered and protected from the pet trade?

PS: octomonkey, I heard you had some cute babies recently. Congrats, and could I see some pics too?

 

[OctoMonkey]

Hi pandora, the babies never really did so well, dinno what happened there??????? here is a link to pics
cheers

http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=70252

 

[Pandora]

Well, they were very cute, and I'm sorry to hear about them.. I'm sure you tried your best, I've heard it can be quite hard at times to raise them well depending on the species. Octomonkey, are you on the ceph-list mailing list? There are some people discussing octo baby raising techniques and problems now, maybe you could contribute your experiences there.

 

[OctoMonkey]

hmmm i am on ceph list but havnt had any emails for a day or two..... havnt see anything about rearing babies..... I'll need to figure that out......
C

 

[OctoMonkey]

hmmm i am on ceph list but havnt had any emails for a day or two..... havnt see anything about rearing babies..... I'll need to figure that out......
C

 

[OctoMonkey]

hmmm double trouble???????