32 votes

Scientists discover second deep-sea octopus nursery off of Costa Rica

2 comments

  1. [2]
    ChingShih
    Link
    (Not sure if this is the best category to post in. Sorry!) This is less of a new discovery of octopus brooding and more of a "revisiting a site to better survey it and learn new things" kind of...

    (Not sure if this is the best category to post in. Sorry!)

    This is less of a new discovery of octopus brooding and more of a "revisiting a site to better survey it and learn new things" kind of situation. Though the first discovery of a deep-sea octopus brooding site occurred in this same area in 2013-14, the study was only published in April 2018 and finally there has been an opportunity to revisit to gather more information and prove hypotheses at a depth of 3,000 meters!

    The article links to the ROV SuBastian live stream (or Divestream, as they call it). The octopus nursery footage starts at ~5h:57m and they pan around it for a couple minutes. There's some explanation of how octopuses benefit from the thermal vents at ~5h:48m, though people are talking over it in the background so it's a bit hard to hear. Then towards the end of this video they collect some samples of these octopuses.

    For a 3-minute introduction to who is operating the survey and for a look at the ROV from its own cameras, jump back to 4h:16m. Going back even further to 1h:26 you can watch remote sample collection from a depth of 3,154m. Perhaps not as exciting as Formula 1, but this is what collecting organic samples from other planets will be like, too. One day. :)

    Oh and in 2018 an octopus brooding site was also discovered off the California coast.

    9 votes
    1. monarda
      Link Parent
      This was beautifully cool, and I would not have found it on my own. Thank you for sharing it!

      This was beautifully cool, and I would not have found it on my own. Thank you for sharing it!

      2 votes