Published:
28 Oct 2024 22:50 GMT
Such feeding behaviors were previously identified only in gelatinous fish and holothurians.
A strange octopus bouncing on the seabed was discovered at a depth of 4,800 meters in the Pacific, where sunlight does not reach, by an expedition carried out by the University of Western Australia aboard a ship last year.
Inhabiting the so-called ‘abyssal zone’, an oceanic space between 4,000 and 6,000 meters deep characterized by freezing temperatures and crushing pressures, the creature was identified as ‘a big-eyed squid’ (Cirrothauma cf. magna), inform ScienceAlert.
A article from 1997 provides some clues about the strange movement of this octopus, which appears to bounce on the seabed. This curious technique has been described as a form of “locomotion”: it moves by a sudden and single contraction of the crown and brachial membrane, which was always followed by an impulse.
Similar movements have also been observed in other species of cirrhine octopus, which seem to resort to this behavior to hunt their prey.
These movements were observed for the first time in the cirrhine octopus Cirroteuthis tumbari and described by marine biologist Alexei Golikov and his team at the GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Germany, in their study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
This octopus makes a series of bounces on the seabed and at the apex of each jump, it extends its tentacles and inflates the membrane that connects them, landing on the seabed to capture the prey that surrounds it. Then, repeat that sequence.
Such feeding behaviors were previously identified only in gelatinous fish and holothurians (sea cucumbers).
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