Octopus Studies Detail Strange Behavior and Genetics
Octopus Studies Detail Strange Behavior and Genetics
By Eryn Brown
PUBLISHED:
AUGUST
14
2015
UC Berkeley marine biologist Roy Caldwell first saw the intriguing octopus in Panama, in 1977. It was pretty, and striped, and about the size of his little finger. He brought a few specimens back to his lab, and one of the females surprised him: Unlike most octopuses he had seen, she didn't die after laying her eggs -- she kept eating, and then laid more eggs.
"If I had known more, I would have written about it," he said of the animal's behavior.
Instead, Caldwell wound up waiting more than 30 years to see more of the mysterious little octopus, known as Octopus chierchiae, and longer still to study their even more elusive larger cousins, which have been seen so infrequently that they never been given a scientific name, and are known simply as larger Pacific striped octopus, or LPSO (pictured; Roy L. Caldwell).
LPSO, approximately tennis-ball-sized, had been reported to have engaged in unusual behaviors for an octopus, including living in large colonies and living in dens as pairs after mating -- but behaviorists studying marine animals hadn't had much opportunity to confirm the early research.
More:
http://science.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=032001T59P7K#
