purple sandpiper

Billy

Everyone is talking about the octopus using the coconut to get around in, his little space ship in the sea, so to speak. Having raised a baby octopus to adulthood and spend his whole life with him, I am not surprised at this find in the least. When I first laid eyes on our octopus, Billy, he was no bigger than a dime. A tiny glob lay on the deck of a bay shrimp boat that I was observing by catch on and I reached down to pick it up only to have two tiny black eyes look up at me and stretch out eight smidgen of legs. It was love at first sight for me. And little Billy, seemed to be saying to me, water , water please. I grabbed my coffee mug, rinsed it out and filled it with fresh sea water and in went Billy, who immediately showed how pleased he was with a little puff of ink.
At the time I was volunteering at the Pan Am Coastal Studies lab, taking care of their aqua exhibits. Now how was I going to take care of this dime sized infant of an octopus. I remembered raising baby live bearing freshwater fish when I was a child, so why not use a tiny tank that hangs on the side of a big one, and now what would he eat? I knew of some tiny hermit crabs, so tiny , in the tiniest of shells and thought I would try that. So as I dipped little Billy in his new home, he scurried to the little shell I put in with him for his house. He checked it out first, to be sure it was safe, and with one of his tentacles he felt around inside. He disappeared inside of it and I then added some of the itty bitty hermit crabs.
All I could do now is wait to see if he would eat. The next day I rushed to his little home and there was no sight of him, but all around his shell house , were empty little shells , so I now knew I could feed him. Now that he was eating, there was a good chance he might survive. He had neatly stacked the little shells just in front of his little house and I would now have the job of finding enough food for a growing baby octopus.
I also put things in his tank such as small shells I would find with things growing on them such as sea weed and each day he would arrange them how he liked. I also noticed that if his little house was moved by moi, he would move it back where he liked it to be, in the right hand back corner of the tank. He would rearranged the things I put in the tank for him to amuse himself with and feel more at home. I wish now I had filmed the whole sequence.
But Billy was so shy, I never saw him. Not until one evening, just as I was getting ready to leave, I took one more look at his tank and he peaked out at me from his shell. I was elated. He had grown to the size of a nickel. Wow. I would now find larger hermit crabs and tiny baby blue crabs for him. About every three days I would clean his tank and knew that soon I would have to move him to bigger one. And I would have to find a bigger shell for him to live in too. Now I was feeding Billy twice a day and one day I thought I might try to give him a little bigger hermit crab. I held it in front of his shell and tapped the side of the glass gently. He reached out his little tentacle and grabbed the hermy from me , taking it into his house to eat alone.
Well, this story has more so I will continue it next week, as I only have so much room here to tell this tale of Billy, the Amazing Octopus of South Padre Island.
If you would like to be amazed by the tiniest of super heroes of this area, come meet our pistol shrimp, Pete, who can create a burst of light to equal that of the sun, or the many other super heroes of the sea at the Sea Life Center located at 110 N Garcia in Port Isabel next to Pirates Landing. Open daily from 10-4 and closed on Tuesday. Enjoy a guided tour with local naturalist and watch the sea life being fed. Call 956-299-1957 for more info. from the desk of Scarlet Colley , Happiest of Holidays, see our website at spisealife.org

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