"The heat, a new study suggests, makes for an ideal breeding ground for these eight-legged animals."
"In 2018, Amanda Kahn, an invertebrate biologist at San Jose State University, joined an ocean expedition to scout the base of Davidson Seamount, an inactive underwater volcano off the coast of central California. She came for the sponges and corals.
But she and her colleagues stumbled across something much more astounding. As their remotely operated vehicle, which was probing the seafloor and streaming video back to their ship, rose from behind a rock, the crew gasped. In shimmering waters, they saw scores of upside-down octopuses nestled in rocky crevices with their arms clutched around their frames. A closer look revealed that they were protecting eggs, similar to the way that birds brood in a nest.
“Sometimes you recognize immediately the magnitude of something special that you’ve found,” Dr. Kahn said. “And I think that was one of those really special moments.”
When James Barry, a marine ecologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, got a glimpse on a later expedition, he instantly wondered why so many octopuses were here. “And so we set about to figure out,” he said."
Katrina Miller reports for the New York Times August 23, 2023.
SEE ALSO:
"Scientists Uncover The Secret Of The Deep-Sea ‘Octopus Garden’" (Washington Post)
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