Scientists first caught a giant octopus for a meal
Researchers from the Oceanographic Institute MBARI found that the rare deep-water octopus Haliphron atlanticus feeds on jellyfish. This diet distinguishes it from most other octopuses prefer fish and crustaceans. An article about the study published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.
H. atlanticus or Semiluki octopus — one of the two biggest octopus in the world, about the same size, 75 pounds and three and a half metres in length, reaches only a giant octopus Enteroctopus dofleini. Living closer to the coast of a giant octopus well studied, and the life semiryaga deep-sea octopus, despite its enormous size, very little is known. He occasionally catches in trawls of fishing vessels, and more rarely in the lenses of underwater cameras. Still didn’t know what to eat these octopuses.
Rare Sighting Reveals #DeepSea #Octopus’s Unusual Breakfast https://t.co/F1tnpJW8JV @sciam #MBARI pic.twitter.com/P1JvaB95vJ
— MBARI (@MBARI_News) 30 Mar 2017.
The authors of the new work using submersibles on the remote control (ROV) captured three instances of H. atlanticus in the area of the underwater Monterey canyon and the Hawaiian Islands. One of the captured octopus eat jellyfish Phacellophora camtschatica and at the time of filming left on her only the dome with a fringe of tentacles around the edge, which the researchers used to hunt other marine life.
Scientists also examined the stomach contents of five octopuses from the Zoological Museum of Hamburg and found the remains of jellyfish and other flowing down in the stomachs of all five specimens.
Such a diet is unusual for cephalopods, usually they eat fish, shellfish and crustaceans. Apparently, this diet stems from the fact that gelatinous sea creatures are found in abundance in the water column, where they live Semirechie octopus, and other food in their habitat a little.
Knowledge regarding the diet of H. atlanticus will allow to better understand the complex food chain of deep-sea ecosystems and to observe how the sea water pollution with different wastes, for example, similar to jellyfish plastic bags will affect the open-ocean dwellers.
Despite the fact that Semiluki octopus is little studied, it is not the most mysterious deep-sea cephalopod mollusk. Not so long ago scientists have found at a record depth of baby octopus, belonging to a new species.
Anna Manshina