World's deepest octopus captured on camera

[flash13]

World's deepest octopus captured on camera

 

The octopus moves in to investigate the bait on the lander

 

Source

 

The deepest ever sighting of an octopus has been made by cameras on the Indian Ocean floor.

 

The animal was spotted 7,000m down in the Java Trench - almost 2km deeper than the previous reliable recording.

 

Researchers, who report the discovery in the journal Marine Biology, say it's a species of "Dumbo" octopus.

 

The name is a nod to the prominent ear-like fins just above these animals' eyes that make them look like the 1940s Disney cartoon character.

 

The scientist behind the identification is Dr Alan Jamieson.

 

He's pioneered the exploration of the deep using what are called "landers".

 

These are instrumented frames dropped overboard from research ships.

 

They settle on the seabed and record what passes by.

 

Dr Jamieson has discovered a host of deep-sea organisms using lander technology

 

Dr Jamieson's equipment filmed two octopuses - one on a drop to 5,760m and a second to 6,957m. The individual animals were 43cm and 35cm in length.

 

They've been placed in the Grimpoteuthis family - the group commonly known as Dumbo.

 

Octopus fragments and eggs have been found at very great depths, but until this discovery, the previous deepest reliable sighting was at 5,145m down.

 

That was a black and white photo of an animal taken 50 years ago off Barbados.

 

A Dumbo octopus was seen on two separate dives

 

The significance of the Indian Ocean observations is that we now know that octopuses can find potentially suitable habitat across at least 99% of the global seafloor. But those animals that do live

 

at depth will clearly need some special adaptations, says Dr Jamieson.

 

"They'd have to do something clever inside their cells. If you imagine a cell is like a balloon - it's going to want to collapse under pressure. So, it will need some smart biochemistry to make sure it

 

retains that sphere," the scientist explained.

 

[Karlston]

It's amazing that  'smart biochemistry' is all that allows such soft organisms to survive the tremendous pressure at those depths.

[mp68terr]

Well... yes and no.

Cells are not like balloons, they are not empty structures filled with air. Cells are full of intracellular materials.

Yes, the pressure is high, but there is probably no difference of pressure within the organism. What makes structures collapsing under pressure is the difference of pressure between inside and outside.