Octopus and Cuttlefish Play Hide and Seek

Octopus and Cuttlefish Play Hide and Seek
Spread The Viralist



If you’re an octopus fan, our guess is you’ll adore its close relative, the noble cuttlefish. These two magnificent beings belong to the family of mollusks and they have many characteristics in common.

One of these characteristics is their amazing ability to hide in plain sight by changing their color and skin patterns. When we came across Mory, the playful cuttlefish introduced in this video, we thought it would be fun to stimulate one of our octopuses with a game of hide and seek.
Rudy, the young octopus in today’s video, is very curious and playful, the perfect candidate. After feeding him a big lunch, we were certain we would not be in any way threatening the safety of the smaller cuttlefish.

We set up an observation tank with many hiding spots, lots of different colors and various textures. All we needed to do next was bring these two together and watch the magic happen.
We were of course ready to intervene if at any point they decided to play rough. Luckily, this wasn’t the case and these two little guys actually seemed to enjoy the time they spent together.

source

Recommended For You

About the Author: Octolab TV

36 Comments

  1. (Ger)
    Ruby schien neugirig auf den neuen "Gast" zu sein, aber versuchte auch nicht zu aufdringlich oder bedrohlich zu wirken.
    was ich sehr sozial finde, (muss ich zugeben) hätte ich Kraken nicht zugetraut.
    Der Cuddelfisch, schien am anfang unsicher zu sein/ eingeschüchter von der größe/möglicher Räuber.
    Bei 4:00 nahm der Cuddelfisch die beiden oberen arme hoch, ich würde zugerne wissen, was er bedeutet.

    aha, hab es gefunden, also: Bis hierhin und nicht weiter/ Berühre mich nicht

    (eng)
    Ruby seemed to be inquisitive on the new "guest", however, also did not try to look too meddlesome or menacing.
    what I find very social, (I must admit) I would not have credited with octopuses.
    seemed in start to be unsafe/ intimidated from the size/ more possible predator.
    At 4:00 picked up of the Cuddelfisch both upper tentacle, I would know eagerly what he means.

    I Have foundet: don't touch me

  2. Rather hair raising actually. Not so much a "play date" as watching an octopus hunting the cuttlefish and the cuttlefish having to constantly evade the octopus. Make no mistake, the octopus would eat the cuttlefish if it could.

  3. I'm wondering if maybe the octopus was just wandering around the tank, while the cuttlefish was cautiously observing the octopus.

    I don't think the cuttlefish was scared for its life. You see a few times where it got closer to the octopus. One time where it put two tentacles up infront of the octopus. Not sure if that's some kind of communication.

    Either way, cute video.

  4. I've had pet octopuses and a pet cuttlefish before and neither of them appeared stressed out in this video. They tend to turn pitch black or shock white when frightened and will ink in an attempt to confuse whatever it perceives as a predator. Plus, octopuses aren't as quick as cuttlefish, they prefer to go after crustaceans. The zebra stripe pattern is kind of their typical non-camoflouged skin state, we see it sort of do the "look like a rock" thing in some parts but not to the extent that they can sometimes do it. My old pet cuttlefish would sometimes change the texture of its skin so much it literally would look like a rock. Feeding the cuttlefish glass shrimp was the most entertaining thing to watch in my aquarium. He'd sneak up behind them all stealthily and then in the blink of an eye his two hunting tentacles would dart out (the muscles in them are basically spring-loaded) and grab a shrimp and pull it back into his arms and mouth. I say "he" but I don't know what gender it was, but whatever. I named him "Barrel" after the fictional alien drummer in Interstella 5555, which is a cool music video type anime movie set to the Daft Punk album Discovery, I recommend it. My best friend at the time and I were super into Daft Punk. I named some other things in my tank after the other bandmates, like my uber-colorful mandarin goby named Arpeggio (the guitarist), my octopus named – go figure – Octavius (the keyboardist), and if I recall correctly, the one I named Stella was my longfin batfish that I had later on, although I'm probably misremembering. The only additions to my tank I ever had problems with were one of my blue damsels eating the other blue damsel I had (which coincidentally were my first saltwater fish, along with some black and white damsels, forget what they're called) and a murderous white-spotted hermit crab that cornered my yellow tang inside a conch shell that the tang would sleep inside of every night, and by the time I woke up and saw the results in the morning, the hermit crab had picked the tang's eye out and was eating its brain. I took it back to the pet shop so it wouldn't go after anything else. Oh and a piece of advice for any saltwater aquarists in the comments – if you're in need of an addition to your tank's cleaning crew, instead of just getting more snails, look into getting sea hares. They're more interesting and fun to watch than snails, in fact they're sort of cute.

  5. #teamMory ! Rudy, shrimp plus a cuttlefish! I really enjoyed watching this as cuttlefish are my favorite! I've often wondered if they would interact or avoid each other in the wild. Thank you.

  6. Do you see when the cuttlefish puts up his 2 tentacles. That's not the Cuttlefish way of saying "Peace". That's Cuttlefish sign language for "don't touch me". That's at 4 minutes.

  7. Please do more Cuttlefish videos! Those animals are amazing, would love to see two interact with each other. I loved the little peace sign the cuttlefish threw at the octopus ?

  8. To all who asked; I'm fairly certain that the cuttlefish would be most likely to eat smaller octopus.
    Both have predators of their own kind. Their lives are also full of fear, that's why they've adapted with colour changes, ink sprays & fast getaways. Granted, it might be scared but compared to the ocean, those tanks are a haven.

Comments are closed.