In the depths of the Pacific, just off the coast of California (USA), at a depth of 3,000 meters, a real landscape of nature is hidden. In a place already known as ”playground octopuses‘Thousands of specimens come together to take advantage of the natural whirlpools found there’. The heat seeping through the cracks in these hydrothermal vents helps the eggs crack faster.
A group of scientists in Monterey, off the central coast of California, has now discovered: largest hatchery with thousands of octopuses They congregate in a kind of natural whirlpool to mate, nest and protect their eggs, as detailed in a study published in the journal Science Advances.
According to researchers, pearl octopuses (Muusoctopus Robustus), marine animals of a rather solitary nature, congregate on the seabed because the heat of an extinct submarine volcano is filtering through some cracks, They use this to make their eggs hatch faster.
“There are clear advantages to settling in this natural whirlpool,” octopus biologist Janet Voight of the Chicago Field Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study told DW.
This nesting site was discovered in 2018 by researchers from the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and other institutions. The team used a remote-controlled underwater vehicle. save a community of about 6,000 octopuses It nests at a depth of just over 3,000 meters.
“It was totally incredible. Suddenly we saw thousands of pearl octopuses, all upside down, legs up and moving from side to side. They were fending off potential predators and turning their eggs to get an even flow of water.” and oxygen, explained co-author Andrew DeVogelaere, a marine biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
mothers die fast
For three years, scientists monitored the area to understand the brood cycle, recording both the developmental stage of eggs in 31 nests and the inevitable deaths of grapefruit-sized octopus mothers.
“After the cubs leave the nest and swim away immediately in the dark, Mothers who never leave their nests and are never fed during nesting die rapidly.‘ said James Barry, a biologist at the Monterrey Institute and co-author of the study.
In addition, the researchers calculated that: The nest’s warm temperature more than halved the time it took for eggs to hatchthis meant a reduced risk of being eaten by snails, shrimps and other predators.
Eggs in this region hatch in about 21 months, according to the report; this is much shorter than the four years or more required to lay eggs for other known deep-sea octopuses.
“Generally, Cold water slows metabolism and embryonic development and prolongs life in the deep sea. But here, the heat seems to be speeding things up.” Marine biologist Adi Khen of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, who was not involved in the research, told DW:
Mike Vecchione, a zoologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, who was not involved in the study, praised the researchers’ “decisiveness to collect such detailed data on such a remote location.”
These octopus gardens “may be common and really important in the depths of the seas, and until now we knew very little about them. There is so much to discover in the deep seas,” he thought.
Reference work: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adg3247
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