Two miles below the waves off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, a team of geochemists in a subsea vehicle accidentally discovered hundreds of strange, beautiful purple octopus incubating their eggs. Deep sea biologists were stunned. "When I first saw the photos, I thought, 'They shouldn't be there! Not that deep and not that many of them!'" said Janet Voight, a zoologist at the Field Museum in Chicago.
Deep-sea octopuses usually live in far colder temperatures. Higher temperatures jump-start their metabolism, demanding more oxygen than the warm water provides. To brood eggs in warm water is usually suicide. The mysterious group of octopus mamas were ill fated indeed: of the 186 eggs attacked to the rocks underwater, none showed signs of a developing embryo. So what were the octopuses doing there?
According to biologists, there are likely other groups of octopuses living nearby, in crevices where the water is cool and oxygen rich. "They're analogous to boomers who have all the good jobs, while the millennials wait, seeking one little piece of cool rock." Those who can't fit into the luxurious crevices are forced to the dangerous warmth of the outskirts.
Female octopuses only produce one clutch of eggs in their lives. In order for the octopus population to be sustained, there must be more octopuses to replace the dying mothers and eggs. "To my knowledge, there had been no reports of octopuses at this or comparable depths between Southern California and Peru. Never would I have anticipated such a dense cluster of these animals in the deep sea," Voight said of the serendipitious discovery. "What else is down there we can't yet imagine?"
After examining 186 of the egg via images from the immersion, she did not find a single with a developing embryo. What asks for the origin: Why would so many calamarians choose such a terrible place to care for their eggs?
According to the press release, a lot of Dorado Outcrop can be a great place to raise an octopus family with ideal places to attach clutches to other crevices and cracks in hardened lava. But those spots may have been full, and so this unfortunate group of mothers had to choose a less than perfect nursery. It is also possible that the crevices were not as active when the octopus put their eggs, Weisberger reports. The hot water and low acid could have come later.Adding the intrusion is the fact that hydrothermal valves are one of the most exciting and least-studied systems on earth. The valves, where hot, mineral-rich waters that are heated by magma flow deeper underground holes through cracks in the seabed, were discovered only in 1977. Since then, scientists have discovered that they are at home for extremophilic organisms, such as bacteria that can survive incredibly high heat and pressure that help scientists to understand what life on other planets can look like.
The new purple octopus is unlikely to be the last surprise found at sea valves. (In fact, researchers noted some tentacles that waved from other, more inviting fractures in the mountain.) "This is just the third hydrothermal system of its kind as a community, but there are still millions of environments in the deep sea," Geochemist Geoffhved from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and co-authors of the study say in the release. "What other remarkable discoveries awaits us
According to the press release, a lot of Dorado Outcrop can be a great place to raise an octopus family with ideal places to attach clutches to other crevices and cracks in hardened lava. But those spots may have been full, and so this unfortunate group of mothers had to choose a less than perfect nursery. It is also possible that the crevices were not as active when the octopus put their eggs, Weisberger reports. The hot water and low acid could have come later.Adding the intrusion is the fact that hydrothermal valves are one of the most exciting and least-studied systems on earth. The valves, where hot, mineral-rich waters that are heated by magma flow deeper underground holes through cracks in the seabed, were discovered only in 1977. Since then, scientists have discovered that they are at home for extremophilic organisms, such as bacteria that can survive incredibly high heat and pressure that help scientists to understand what life on other planets can look like.
The new purple octopus is unlikely to be the last surprise found at sea valves. (In fact, researchers noted some tentacles that waved from other, more inviting fractures in the mountain.) "This is just the third hydrothermal system of its kind as a community, but there are still millions of environments in the deep sea," Geochemist Geoffhved from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and co-authors of the study say in the release. "What other remarkable discoveries awaits us
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