2023-07-01 22:00:00
Scientists have discovered an active octopus nursery on a rocky outcrop some 3,000 kilometers below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, near Costa Rica – Central America. This may be the third recorded example of a hatchery in which large numbers of creatures congregate.
advertising
During a three-week expedition in June, researchers aboard the scientific research vessel Falkor, belonging to the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a non-profit organization, registered hundreds of octopuses and were able to witness the birth of their young in the Afloramento Dorado, which has the dimensions of a football field. The site, an underwater mountain, is located at a depth of 2,800 meters, and was explored by the SuBastian deep diving robot (ROV).
Beth Orcutt, geomicrobiologist and senior research fellow at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, based in the US state of Maine, said: “We saw that some of them were ready to hatch – as if the octopus had just come out. It was a very emotional moment because we didn’t expect it.” Explorers aboard Falkor also captured spectacular images of other ocean life, including tripod fish, stingrays and coral gardens.
Octopus nursery at Outcrop Imagem/Dorado Schmidt Ocean Institute | reproduction
a mystery solved
The finding of an active community of mother and young octopuses has solved a mystery that has baffled researchers. In 2013, an underwater vehicle first spotted a large group of octopuses at Outcrop Dorado. This was the first time that octopuses had been observed clustered in such numbers in this way at a low-temperature hydrothermal vent. The scientists found that the animals appeared stressed — and their eggs showed no sign of development.
Orcutt said, “I was part of the team that went there (10 years ago). We just went to that outcrop to look for evidence of low temperature vents and found that there were these octopuses, but they didn’t seem to be hatching successfully. So the goal was to go back to Dorado and find out what was going on, and we found out that it’s an active nursery. We saw babies being born.”
Scientists also found another smaller octopus nursery in a low-temperature hydrothermal vent on an as-yet-unnamed seamount.
Read too
#Scientists #find #promising #octopus #nursery