©Roy Caldwell: A female Abdopus aculeatus mating. The male is out of view at bottom right; his heterocotylus is inserted into her mantle.
Colours
Distinguishing features
This small octopus is active during the day, found mostly on intertidal reef flats. It can create very effective camouflage using both colour and texture.
Referring to records of both A. aculeatus and A. capricornicus at Lizard Island, Dr Wen-Sung Chung notes (11 Sep 2020):
"It remains highly possible that A. aculeatus lives there based on a few specimen reported by Mark [Norman] long time ago. Also, there are many new Abdopus species undescribed, at least 6 more to my knowledge. As I mentioned in my last mail [10 Sep 2020, see Abdopus capricornicus], lack of molecular data amongst known/undescribed species would be difficult to tell. I might collect some arm tissue next time and hopefully the sequence data might give us another evidence to clarify whether multiple species live in Coconut reef flat."
Size
- Up to 6 cm (Body)
- Up to 30 cm (Arms)
Synonyms
Distribution
©Atlas of Living Australia: Australian distribution
Behaviour
Mating can occur at a distance, allowing both male and female to remain safely in separate crevices. The males extends a modified arm to the female along which sperm packages are sent.
This species can walk bipedally (on two of its arms) (Huffard et al, 2005), a feat previously thought to be impossible in the absence of a hard skeleton.
It can also cleave an arm neatly at its base to distract a predator.
Web resources
References
References that assist with identification
- Norman, M. (2000). Cephalopods: A world guide ConchBooks, Hackenheim, Germany.
Other references
- Huffard, C. (2005). The behavioral ecology and locomotion of Abdopus aculeatus (d'Orbigny, 1834), Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Berkeley. LIRS catalog number 950.
- Huffard, C.L. (2006). Locomotion by Abdopus aculeatus (Cephalopoda: octopodidae): walking the line between primary and secondary defences, Journal of Experimental Biology, 209: 3697-3707. LIRS catalog number 1098.
- View all references