Tellins for Lunch

                                                                                                                                     photo © 2014 Ellen Bulger
MINE! MINE! MINE! THIS IS MY LUNCH DAMN YOU!    

June found us on Eleuthera and swimming around in Half Sound Bay again. I'd often collected lovely pairs of tellin valves from a sandbar in middle of the bay. On almost every visit, when I swam across that spot, I would find a couple of dozen of them laying out on the sand just waiting for me. Sometimes there would be gorgeous sunrise tellins. Tellina radiata, always the speckled species, Tellinella listeri. (Here I thought it was Tellina as well. I clearly haven't been paying attention!) 

I wondered if the shells might have been swept to the bar from various places in the bay by the outgoing tide or if a predator had eaten them on the spot. I didn't really know.

                                                                                                                                photo © Ellen Bulger 2014
Nothing to see here, no sirree. These are not the cephs you are looking for. Move along.

This last trip we ended up at Half Sound when the tide was high. So when I swam over the bar, it was well over my head where I can usually touch bottom. (In fact, the photograph that is the background for this blog page was taken at pretty much the exact same spot as these octopus photos, only it was at low tide. So you see Eleuthera is gorgeous from above and fascinating from below and delightful from any angle.) Looking down, I saw a trail of tellin shells and followed them. I came upon a suspicious-looking lump; an octopus in stealth mode. I did some surface dives to try to get some photos with my point & shoot. I was wearing 3 ml neoprene vest and no lead, so I was quite buoyant. It was tricky trying to stay down deep enough to get a decent shot.

                                                                                                                                     photo © Ellen Bulger 2014
Tricky to get the shot when you can't touch bottom and you're wearing no lead.

Not a minute later I saw a second octopus, this one using a conch shell as a lair. A tight squeeze, but there is scant real estate on a sandbar. This second octopus was less scared and more determined to hang on to its delicious lunch, a speckled tellin. If it could have talked, it would have been shouting "GO AWAY! MINE! MINE! MINE!"

                                                                                                                                                                                     photo © Ellen Bulger 2014
Here's a charming little lair and a mini midden. Apparently tellins aren't the only thing on the menu.

So there you go, mystery solved. I'd like to go back to Half Sound Bay at high tide again some time and see if I can catch these guys hunting, instead of just eating. I'd love to catch them in the act of pulling those tellins out of the sand.

Note: I believe this is Amphioctopus burryi, commonly known as the Caribbean brownstripe or armstripe octopus. The habitat and behavior seem to be a match, but I'm largely picture keying. So if anyone knows for sure, please let me know in the comments section.

                                        Amphioctopus burryi, the brown/arm -stripe octopus                     photo © Ellen Bulger 2014