The Sepia latimanus at the California Academy of Sciences are now three months old, and they are growing fast. I was on a two week vacation and the doubled in size. They are also starting to show interactivity that the species is known for in the wild, and they very much know when they are about to be fed. I still haven’t seen the colors pulsing along the arms when hunting that I mentioned in a previous blog post, but we are seeing much more adult coloration along with amazing ‘light shows’ along their skin. I had time to sit and watch them for about 30 minutes after a feed and noticed that when they are done eating they all tend to stretch out their feeding tentacles – I was able to catch it and its the last clip on the video.
I am fortunate enough to be heading to the Philippines this month as part of the Hearst Expedition (http://www.calacademy.org/science/hearst/ ) to collect coral and cephalopods for display at work and very much hope to get some footage of S. latimanus in the wild.