Dear David,

Octopi do drill holes into shells of their prey, but there is a
mystery about the pin holes (less than 0.5 mm dia.) that
appear to be too small to be drilled by them. (The larger holes
drilled into turbans and some other large gastropods are obvious.)

We now keep small juveniles of some local reef octopus, hoping
to see if they can do this trick. Meanwhile, there are a few
people who claim that the pin holes drilled into cowries are made
by octopi, for example take a look at a picture BBS of a Japanese
site. http://www.bigai.ne.jp/bbs/bbs.cgi
We have been discussing about this topic for some time.

Cheers,
Masashi Yamaguchi
Faculty of Science
University of the Ryukyus
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www.cc.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/~coral/
----- Original Message -----
From: "David TOUITOU" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, July 27, 2001 12:22 AM
Subject: Caribbean Octopus & Shell Question


> Dear all Collectors,
>
> I am living since 5 months in The Caribbeans, at la
> MArtinique island.
> All the times i found any shell in from an octopus "home",
> the shell is drilled (small, rarely more than one).
> Does anybody know if the caribbean octopus drill holes ?
> I did not know that octopus could do that...
> I never found any undrilled shell ! Never !
>
> Thank you
> David
>
>
>
>
> [log in to unmask]
> [log in to unmask]
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