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These movies have sound, but the sound has nothing to do with the movie content, since there was no way to record the sound underwater (and there would have been no sound under water in any event). Sometimes you will hear whatever was on the radio (often Howard Stern) at the time. Sometimes you'll hear the parrots hooting in the background. Sometimes the grunts and complaints of the frustrated photographer. You are better off turning the sound down: it will be needlessly distracting.

Walking Around

You might think that an octopus walking around a tank would be pretty boring, but that's now how I see it!

Walks Over Rocks (13 MB): he crawls out of a hole in the rock, having trouble walking past a strand of macro algae. Notice how he uses the ends of his arms to explore for food around the edge of the rock, where he cannot see. The BiMac spot is clear and bright

Dancing on Glass (5 MB): he walks across the face of the aquarium glass using his suckers.

Arm Dance (10 MB): a long clip showing the long, delicate arms of one of my non-BiMac octopuses.

Long Arms (2 MB): another clip showing this specimen's long and delicate arms.

More Long Arms (2 MB): more of this graceful creature

Glass to Rock (12 MB): this BiMac is moving along the glass, but in a manner very different than that done in Arm Dance, above. His arms are shorter and less delicate than in Arm Dance. The blue spot is clear in this clip. His embrace of the rock when he first reaches it is fairly typical behavior, as is his subsequent movement into a rock crevice.

Up and Down (3 MB): one day, I found this octopus doing this strange behavior, repeatedly. He would climb to the top of the water column and then suddenly drop down to the bottom, over and over again. He never did it again, and I've never figured out what he was doing, other than perhaps playing.

Color Changes

Not only can octopuses change their skin color and texture, they can do it in the blink of an eye. Here are some examples.

Flares and Flashes (5 MB): he crawls out of a rock, apparently threatened by the huge camera lens/eye. About half way through the clip, he flashes his colors from dark to white and back. Notice how his arms are arranged so that he looks large.

Color Cycling (1 MB): Notice the dark/light color changes at the end of this short clip.

More Color Cycling (2 MB): there is one full color flash/cycle in the middle of this clip.

Even More Color Cycling (2 MB): a friend took this movie of a brief but extreme color cycle.

Color Flashes ( MB): Notice the light/dark flashes that move across his body. This implies that each piece of skin knows which pieces of skin are adjacent to it; but, more than that, in that instant, it also implies which arm is next to the other arms. The coordination is pretty amazing. I suppose this could be used to make it seem as if something were moving across the rock.

Color Changes (4 MB): this clip starts out slowly with him near a rock. As he moves away from the rock, the colors change to mimic the sand/substrate. Notice how he's exploring the sand with all of his arms, looking for food. Towards the end, as he finally heads for a second rock, his body turns from a light tan to a deep, rich chocolate color.

Eating Behaviors

Here are some clips where the octopus acquires some food.

Walks Away with Clam (10 MB): he clearly likes mahogany clams! Notice the skin flaps that poke up above his eyes towards the end of the clip.

Grabs Sweetlips (8 MB): he approaches and grabs the body of a sweetlips that had just died in the reef tank. Notice the body lunges towards the end of the clip: I would guess he is starting to use his beak to chew on the food.

Grabbing Food (3 MB): this specimen, clearly not a BiMac, glides out of the rocks to claim his meal.

Miscellany

Goby and Octopus (2 MB): conventional wisdom says that any specimen put in an octopus tank will get eaten. I guess I managed to keep this octopus fairly well fed, because it ignored this goby until I moved it to another tank.

Breathing (1 MB): great closeup of an octopus breathing in a rock, showing his siphon working.

Breathing on Rock (2 MB): this clip shows a BiMac "breathing" while sitting on a rock. It shows you how his mantle inflates and deflates and how the siphon works. I doubt that you can clearly define where his body ends and the rock begins!

Clam Tussle (10 MB): at one point, I purchased three BiMacs from a [somewhat] local breeder, and kept them in a 75 gallon tank. In this clip, one of them is exploring the mahogany clams I had just placed in the tank, when he gets "too close" to another octopus. The first time you watch the clip, you may not see the second octopus until quite late in the clip; watch it again, and you will see how difficult he is to spot, right up until he "wants" to be seen.

Webs into Hole (2 MB): this clip starts out with the octopuses arms so well camouflaged that they appear to be transparent. When he gets tired of the camera's eye, he turns brown and then pulls back into a hole in the rock.

Camouflage (1 MB): notice the gentle gradient in color from a dark body to arms that almost melt into the rock face.

Little Guy 1 (13 MB): this clip shows a very small BiMac (his body is about 1/2 inch long) walking around the tank. Notice the transparent feeder shrimp which are larger than he is! Towards the end, he runs towards the rock, and then uses his siphon to jet to the rock.

Little Guy 2 (12 MB): another clip showing a baby BiMac walking along the glass, this time almost colliding with one of the feeder shrimp.

Poof! (2 MB): a friend took this, with a video camera, rather than a digital camera. The octopus is sitting on the glass, which is why you think there are two octopuses there. He uses his siphon to emit a huge jet of what one must imagine is, well, um, a biological waste product.

Eating Shrimp (11 MB): A piece of shrimp, skewered on a clear plastic "wiggle stick", is placed near the octopus, which rushes out to grab it. When the shrimp is pulled away, he retires to the tank floor, spreading his arms out so as to look as large as possible. When the shrimp is moved close again, he rushes out and grabs the shrimp off of the skewer. Notice the characteristic blue dots that indicate that he is a BiMac. Sometimes I had problems, because the octopus would grab both the shrimp and the skewer.