"The Mudskipper and The Hyena" - Discovery channel

[Delphinus]

Did anyone catch this on Wild Discovery last night? It's a documentary about life in the intertidal mangrove flats on Kenya's north coast.

Fantastic. I taped it when it repeated last night. That's a keeper for sure.

My jaw fell when I saw that field of ritteri anemones H. magnifica and hoardes of skunk clowns. Ritteri's are amazing anemones, my personal favourite I think, so of course this would strike a chord for me. Also interesting to see them exposed at low tide, I had heard that sometimes ritteris are exposed at low tides but I had never seen it before.

But equally spectacular was the octopus walking along the beach. They intentionally strand themselves in tidal pools at low tide, so that they can feast on the unsuspecting mud crabs that come out at low tide. Once they have their fill, they go back to the ocean, and thus, the beach walk. Utterly amazing, to see this octopus out of the water, just walking along like it's nobody's business. I guess it shouldn't surprise me so much, I have heard stories about people keeping octopus, discovering sometimes that during the night the octopus had escaped the tank, walked across the room, pretty much eaten everything out of another tank, and then walking back to the original tank and letting itself back into that tank. I always thought this was a bit far-fetched and possibly urban legend ... but umm ... after seeing this, I can see how it could happen... Yeah, I don't think I'm ready to try caring for an octopus in MY tanks ... [img]smile.gif[/img]

Well, OK, realistically, everything they showed was spectacular.

[ 21 June 2002, 07:44: Message edited by: delphinus ]