Massive octopus nursery found in deep sea | Hacker News Reader

Massive octopus nursery found in deep sea

nationalgeographic.com

151 pointsokket32 comments

Original source: https://nautiluslive.org/video/2018/10/24/massive-aggregatio...

Seriously great project, the live feed can make for interesting viewing

Every time I see deep sea creatures being filmed with bright white light I always wonder if that leaves them permanently blind.

Many times, they will use a wavelength that doesn't bother the animals.

Paging Ringo Starr...

Paging Raffi :-)

Worlds largest, aka the second one found

Ok, we've replaced the title with the HTML doc title.

This may sound cynical. But, I sigh each time I hear of such natural discoveries. This basically means humans will begin interfering in the name of research.

That's optimistic. We'll probably try to eat them.

It's pretty common in Wild Kratts.

An Octopus Farm would certainly be an interesting concept.

Some people is trying to do it since decades. Would be game-changing but is far from being solved still. The damned eight-armed tiny houdini's are too much smart for its own good.

Interesting! I wonder if it should give us pause that we're continuing to try to farm a creature that's so far proven too smart to allow us farm it successfully...

I believe the problem is that the octopuses (or cuttlefish, same problem) slowly produce less and less fertile percentage of eggs. So, first year 100%, then 50%, 20%, 5% then all sterile after five years, that sort of thing. And so far nobody really understands what we are or aren't doing, or what special nutrient, mineral, bacteria, plankton, something is or isn't present in the environment...

Yeah. Definitely not an animal to be contained but creating an environment to keep healthy populations in stock would be a leap forward.

These are not an edible species of octopus, they live at a depth of over 3000 metres, five times deeper than any trawler can reach, and they're small - species in that genus are typically ~10 cm across, so all 1000 of them would make about a tonne, worth <$10k if they somehow became edible. I don't think they're in much danger of being eaten by humans.

from the video they definitely look larger than 4 inches in diameter..

CORRECTED: Is the length of the mantle. The round inflatable part close to the head. Tentacles and 'head' sensu-stricto are excluded.

Cephalopods will change a lot its length when tentacles are retracted (dead animal) or relaxed (alive), so 'mantle lenght' is used instead as a sort of equivalent to body length. Is a much less variable measure.

So a massive nursery of octopus, not a nursery of massive octopus.

P.S. I feel the plural of octopus should be neither octopi nor octopuses, but either: octopus - same as singular, you know, like 'sheep'; octopussies - for fun, because they're not as cute as cats.

Isn't the plural octopodes?

Totally agree here, earlier there was a finding of huge shark nest somewhere in pecific. Scientists went out of their way to hide the location. That is what should have been done here.

I was under the impression that spot was actually pretty common knowledge and the most recent discovery was about _why_ they go to that location, not where it was.

One glimmer of hope is this is in Monterey - where the Moneterey Bay Aquarium is. I understand they have a few programs directed at conservation efforts. Let's hope they take this up.

Are Chinese bottom trawlers respecting Monterey territory?

Very unprobable, but there is some hope

First of all the rocky botom can offer some kind of protection against trawls.

And second, is not clear if this octopus are edible. I can't identify the species with this video. Maybe Graneledone but I'm not sure. The much smaller squat lobster (Munida? Munidopsis?) in the video can be deceptive but the octopus look very small to me. We could be talking about a small animal of only 10cm of mantle length (body minus tentacles). Probably not valuable enough to risk the fishing material and spending fuel on it.

It seems perfect compliance is a ways off, but the USCG spends a lot of effort enforcing EEZs and marine sanctuaries with a lot of results https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56c65ea3f2b77e3a78d34...

Great, relevant link -- thanks!

The jewel of Morro Bay, California.

I'd like to be under the sea In an octopus' garden in the shade He'd let us in, knows where we've been In his octopus' garden in the shade

That's exactly what I just thought, ha.

Geez, guess there's no Beatles fans here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus%27s_Garden

It shames me to admit this made me hungry, octopus is delicious.

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