So this went, uh, a little viral, and I’m cracking up seeing a pretty fair response division between “So soothing, I love the ocean” and “JESUS FUCK MY ANXIETY IS THROUGH THE ROOF.”
“This octopus was NOT impressed when I interrupted its morning feeding stroll during my scuba dive in Melbourne, Australia. It blew itself up like a parachute multiple times to try to intimidate me, before trying to torpedo me like a bowling ball! Octopuses are beautiful, intelligent creatures and this one was using its most creative methods of self defense. Or maybe it was just hungry and angry at the same time (= hangry?)
Only surviving species of the genus Rhinophrynus, over 190 million years of independent evolution, spend nearly all their lives in the dirt, looks like a whoopee cushion, has a very short breeding period and their call sounds like this:
Cephalopods are quick-change artists. Like a living LCD screen, their skin can flicker and flash, or create complex patterns for camouflage and communication. Layers of specialized skin cells interact to match the environment’s color and texture.
Here is the first trial of Bisquick’s new enrichment! This is the Wurm Ball. The general idea of enrichment is to make Bisquick’s life as interesting and fun as possible, and that includes new ways of offering him food! This is a slightly modified ping pong ball which I then stuffed with red wigglers (his favorite). So instead of just eating the worms as I toss them in he can engage his brain in how to get the worms out of the ball. I started off with a few big holes as you can see, and it was unsurprisingly very easy for him to figure out the general gist of it. This was his first interaction with it, so it’s really neat to see him investigate the ball in the beginning. Trail II will use a pingpong with more worms and smaller holes, that is if I can get the worms into smaller holes. I do apologize for the shaky camera, I’m not 100% used to using my DSLR for video applications.
For those of you who have not yet met Bisquick he is a species of freshwater stingray (Potamotrygon motoro). Although he is currently small and cute this species (as well as many others) grow to incredibly large sizes; this combined with the fact that they are venomous means they are not for inexperienced keepers. I strongly encourage the average person to merely visit the stingrays at their local aquarium rather than going out and purchasing one.
I didn’t know how badly I needed to see a ray manipulate a ball with its flap-flaps. Such a clever fish.
These are, in my opinion, the most majestic animals currently on this earth.
Here’s a video of them mating from my old PI Roger Hanlon.
omg lol a whole paragraph of this got deleted (the paragraph with the answer to your question). They can grow up to a meter in total length, or about 50 cm if you only measure the mantle. WHICH IS CRAZY and swimming with one of these animals is #1 on my bucket list.
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