Sunday, August 9, 2009

Hurricane a comin...

On Thursday, one of my males died. He was the male who was most eager to mate, so it stands to reason that he may have been nearing the end of his life. I did a necropsy and was unable to find anything egregiously wrong--with disease, you look for abnormalities in the gills, strange coloration, mucous, or tumors. He looked healthy all around, but he had very few spermatophores left, indicating old age. This particular species of octopus lives for approximately a year, so it is not surprising some would die. My females are well, however.

I am starting to get a bit nervous about this hurricane Felicia coming. It doesn't seem likely it will hit Oahu, but there will be rain without a doubt and motorcycle riding in the rain is no fun. I need to go out to Coconut tomorrow to feed and check on the octos, so I am hoping if I go early enough I may be able to avoid the rain.

I need to get more octos. I should have called the octopus fisherman to help me, but I forgot. I keep having this problem. I seem to have lost all motivation. I think I am debilitated by the extremely high expectations. I am looking forward to classes beginning so I might have a bit more structure in my life. However, before that happens, I need to fix my proposal enough for Les to agree to allow me to do cephalopod research.

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