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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
36 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadCephalopods 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.
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.
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.
Seriously great project, the live feed can make for interesting viewing