TRUE Mimic Octopus

[urbanthreatz]

Hey guys and gals, one of the websites i frequent reefscavengers.com just got a juvi mimic octopus in their collector's catch shipment. If anyone is experienced with cephs they are a REALLY cool addition.

[Animal Mother]

And one might note that they are possibly endangered and very rare in their own habitat none the less the marine ornamental trade. Plus paying $400 for something that will most likely only live a few months/weeks is ridiculous. They don't even display their "mimic" behaviors in captivity. If properly housed they won't have anything to mimic, and it is questionable as to whether or not they truly do mimic anything and we are just attributing the shapes and color patterns to similarities between itself and other creatures that inhabit the same waters. My briareus displays many of the same physical actions as the "mimic" but it just doesn't have the black and white stripes.

This type of octopus requires a muck tank. Deep mud bed, instead of sand bed, as they burrow in mud. Very limited live rock. Overall, not for a typical setup by any means.

A person would be better off buying one of the Nicaraguan species.

[rottbo]

If I had the room and the money I would buy it just for the chance of owning such an awsome and great looking animal

[Echidna09]

The dwarfs from Nicaragua don't have documented wild populations either. Collectors have been finding them somewhere recently, though I hope this isn't one of this species last refuges.

I don't mean to be rude, rottbo, but your comment was insensitive and selfish. I don't know if you read Animal Mother's post or not, but to reiterate this animal is not suitable for aquarium life as it is right now and likely as it will be for several years to come. Wild populations are unknown, and while you may be okay with endorsing taking a possibly endangered animal from its natural habitat and shipping it several thousand miles, just to have it die (earlier than it should have, no doubt) after a couple of weeks sitting in an LFS or someone's unsuitable tank I am not, and I urge to become more informed so that you may think the same way. In an aquarium - even one that is designed with a muck inhabitant considered - this animal will be shy and not perform any of the magical things it does in the wild, save possibly a few; that's if you are lucky enough to get one that is not about to reach senescence.

In my opinion, animals in which wild populations are unknown should be illegal to collect or kill until the near-exact numbers are assessed and released to the public. The only exception that I would support would be for scientific research.

Let me go at it from a different angle in case you are still confused. Let's imagine that we were in the big cat business - for show, fur, food - I don't care. Would you go after the Amur Leopard, if one somehow became available to you? If you are a reasonable individual you would find it absurd to purchase an animal with such a low wild population (estimates of 25-34 in the wild), despite the price and obvious health risks (remember, we are in the big cat business). Or what about a Siberian Tiger, which is less endangered than the Amur, therefore a more logical choice for poaching or training? I don't think you would go for it, although it is an awesome animal. What I am trying to get at here is just because we have the means and availability of having such an incredible thing in our houses does not mean that we should.

Maybe you just don't care about a dumb octopus because "What kind of damage can just one do anyway? It's already been collected, and I have a more suitable home for this poor guy instead of the critter keeper he is sitting in at the LFS." Well let me tell you why this line of thinking is not the correct one. You buy the Mimic at your fish store. He dies in two weeks - bummer - but no surprise if you are educated (which if you bought it I hope you are not). You tell your buddies at the fish store that yours dies and you would love to try another one. They push their suppliers to collect another just so you can have it die again in two more weeks. Other people that frequent your fish store saw the octopus and want to try one too. More pressure on suppliers. Suppliers realize they can make a lot of money off of these rare, sought after animals. They up their prices to the distributors, but the distributors don't do any additional markup than they previously were doing. After a few months suppliers can no longer find Mimics or Wonderpus, and move on to another "hot" item. Meanwhile, back in the US, consumers are depressed that their $500 octopus didn't last longer than a month, and they never saw it because it never came out until night, and it kept crawling out of the tank and almost dried up a half dozen times, and it ate all their fish, and terrorized all of their corals, and now they have to replenish all of their cleanup crew, but because all of their livestock was already destroyed, they decided to get another, and then another, until they finally gave up. Then 10 years later suppliers find another collection hotspot and start to import them again for another month until one of their final refuges is torn apart and almost every octopus was taken from it. That is what has probably happened to the little zebras from Nicaragua and the Pacific, and what could happen to Mimics and Wonderpuses if naive aquarists impulse buy or don't care about the environment once they are educated.

I don't mean for this to be an attack on you rottbo, but I hope that a lot of people get to read this and will start questioning if they ever see an animal like this for sale. If there is no demand for something, it will no longer be supplied.

[Thales]

Its not a mimic, its a wunderpus.
All the arguments the arguments presented above apply to both species.

[Animal Mother]

I was referring to the "Bimac" looking Nicaraguan octopus, btw. Cheaper, displays a nice variety of colors and textures, and would be fine in a more typical reef type tank.

[rottbo]

Not rude thats your opinion and we are all entitled to our own.. I think that they are awesome creatures and would love the oportunity to see one live its life out in my livingroom... I dont care how selfish you think I am.. I have threatened species already so flame me more if you want....http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1251209
see

and yes you make valid points but once again opinions.. so heres an argument short but sweet.. there are many fish FW fish available for sell that are now extinct in the wild the only reason they are still on this earth is because of the aquarium trade now I know that this is different because these species are farmed but theres none in the wild so why would you buy one (best example Epalzeorhynchos bicolor also known as th red tail shark believed to be extimct in the wild but I could go into any fish store and buy as many as I wanted for a few bucks a piece)???? I was simply stating that its an awesome species and would be a cool thing to have in a tank yes I know they dont use mimic displays in captivity but who cares they are just simply awesome no matter what they are doing... I have owned a bimac but my next one is hopefully gonna be a Abdopus aculeatus if I can find a young one.....

[rottbo]

and when I say have the money I dont mean for the octo I mean the money to setup a tank the right way for it by spending ungodly amounts on refugium mudit would take alot to give a deep enough mud bed in my 180 for the octo

[Thales]

They really aren't all that awesome in captivity. Wunderpus generally come out twice a day (mostly in the middle of the night) for a little while and are very boring. They don't show any of the 'intelligence' tricks you see in other octos. Mimics seem even more boring. Great pics and video take lots of time to collect, and may not occur at all with other captive specimens.

The pet trade has been very good about destroying native populations/habitats of animals, and ceph people are keen to have this not happen to the mimic and wunderpus. One of the biggest reasons ceph people often wish to see these guys not collected is breeding them is incredibly difficult if not impossible. They are small egged species and raising planktonic paralarvae is generally not possible yet, so the argument that captivity will help the species is pretty empty.

They are cool animals with very specific demands, are are prolly better off left alone for now.

Ceph keeping is really starting to move forward and there are several people working on culturing different species for the trade. I think it would behoove us all to go the route of breeding 'good' pet cephs and leaving potentially threatened species alone.

[urbanthreatz]

I'm so glad this thread turned into more information about the species and the value of not buying one instead of an "i'm going to do whatever i want" argument. Great information and even better points. Thanks

[JHemdal]

Too bad - Thales is correct, that is a Wunderpus, not a true mimic. The mimics are much better in captivity - and they DO demonstrate some very cool activities in captivity. Here is an article I wrote about both species:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/4/fish


Jay

[Thales]

Mimic vs Wunderpus ID:

http://stickycricket.com/cuttle/wund...ic_octopus.htm

[sspargur]

Someone didn't care, it's marked as sold.

[CoreyK]

http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/mimic.php

[Mr. Octopod]

People should really learn to respect these few remaining creatures as what they are, a animal designed to ward off predators and, then eat what ever gets to close.