A team of marine scientists working off the northeast coast of Necker Island, the Hawaiian Archipelago, has encountered a new-to-science species of deep-sea octopus.
According to Dr. Vecchione and his colleagues, this ghostlike octopus is an undescribed species. Image credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Hohonu Moana.
Octopuses are easily separated into two main suborders: (i) cirrate, or finned, octopuses (suborder Cirrina), characterized by fins on the sides of their bodies and fingerlike cirri associated with the suckers on their arms, and (ii) incirrate octopuses (suborder Incirrina), which lack both fins and cirri.
The octopus imaged by the marine scientists aboard NOAA’s ship Okeanos Explorer was a member of Incirrina.
“A distinctive characteristic was that the suckers were in one, rather than two, series on each arm,” said team member Dr. Michael Vecchione, of the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service and National Systematics Lab.
Dr. Vecchione and his colleagues encountered the unknown octopus at a depth of 14,075 feet (4,290 m).
“This animal was particularly unusual because it lacked the pigment cells, called chromatophores, typical of most cephalopods, and it did not seem very muscular,” Dr. Vecchione said.
“This resulted in a ghostlike appearance, leading to a comment on social media that it should be called Casper, like the friendly cartoon ghost.”
“It is almost certainly an undescribed species and may not belong to any described genus.”
After seeing this observation, Dr. Vecchione contacted his colleagues Dr. Louise Allcock of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Dr. Uwe Piatkowski of the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.
“They agreed that this is something unusual and is a depth record for the incirrate octopuses,” Dr. Vecchione said.
“We are now considering combining this observation with some other very deep incirrate observations by a German cruise in the eastern Pacific into a manuscript for publication in the scientific literature.”
