It was in 2016, in waters off Hawaii, at a depth of 4,290 meters (2.6 miles). No one had ever seen an octopus like this, and certainly not one this deep. Based on his eerie appearance, he was nicknamed Casper. Until then, the only cephalopods filmed at such depths were the Dumbo octopuses, named after another cartoon character, which were seen swimming as deep as 6,957 meters, with elegant ear-like fins on either side of their heads. Q&A
What is the Discovered in the deep series?
projection The ocean is one of the world’s last truly wild places. It’s filled with fascinating species that sometimes seem to border on the absurd, from fish that look up through transparent heads to golden snails with iron armor. We know more about deep space than we do about the deep oceans, and science is just beginning to scratch the surface of the rich variety of life in the deep. As mining companies push to industrialize the seabed and world leaders continue to tussle over how to protect the high seas, a new Guardian Seascape series will showcase some of the most recently discovered weird, wonderful, majestic, ridiculous, hard-hitting and impressive creatures. . They reveal how much there is still to learn about Earth’s least-known environment – and how much we need to protect. Thanks for your response. Seeing Casper was an eye-opening moment for Janet Voight, associate curator of invertebrate zoology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. “This is completely new and different,” he says, recalling the discovery. This first glimpse of Casper created many tantalizing mysteries. Why is it so pale? Most other octopuses have colorful chromophores on their skin that change their appearance in an instant and act as camouflage to confuse predators. Is this a breakthrough in octopus evolution? Janet Voight, octopus expert Even in the deep sea, octopuses can be colorful, like the purple, ant Graneledone. Some use a cloak of dark skin pigments, ostensibly to hide the glowing, bioluminescent prey they grab in their hands and thus avoid alerting other predators. Voight speculates that Casper’s paleness may be due to a lack of pigments in his food. Another puzzle is the short arms, although Casper is not alone in having limited reach. “The shallower and more tropical you are, the longer and thinner your arms,” says Voight. This trend toward shorter arms in deep-dwelling octopuses has no specific explanation. Voight believes that instead of reaching out to get food, they developed an alternative tactic of twisting their bodies so that their mouths, on the underside of their bodies, are directly above their food. Scientists learned more about Casper by examining five years of archived video gathered from deep-sea surveys in the Pacific. They found dozens more like Casper perched on the sea floor, of two different species. Unusually, Caspers appear to lay eggs on tall sponges, rather than rocks. Photo: MBARI (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute) “They can be quite common,” says Voight. “It’s just an indicator of how little we know about what’s down there.” For Voight, Caspers with their arms wrapped around eggs stuck to tall sponges were particularly exciting. Previously, he had assumed that sea-floor-dwelling octopuses needed hard rocks to lay their eggs. Further down, there could be less exposed rock, limiting how deep they can go. “Casper showed there are ways around this by finding a sponge stalk,” he says. “Is this a breakthrough in octopus evolution?” The sponges themselves are attached to rock nodules that are scattered across parts of abyssal plains and take millions of years to form. If other deep-sea octopuses are present, female Caspers probably spend a lot of time guarding their eggs. An octopus of another species (Graneledone boreopacifica) was seen off the coast of California, on a steep cliff in the Monterey Canyon, staring at its single clutch in the exact same spot for over four years. At the moment, the pale and mysterious Casper octopuses have yet to be officially named, because everything we know about them comes from pictures. no one has been able to collect a specimen to study in detail. “With an octopus, you really need it in your hand,” Voight says.
