Cephalopod Freak Show : Deep Sea News

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Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.

Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.

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Cephalopod Freak Show

Category: Cephalopods!
Posted on: March 4, 2008 5:14 PM, by CR McClain

Unfortunately, Zoologix beat us to the story of Henry the Hexapus. Henry, caught in a lobster pot off north Whales, is the first reported six-legged octopus. The loss of two limbs did not occur from a tangle with some thug octopus but rather results from a birth defect. If you're interested in how such a thing could happen in this beautiful world, PZ has a whole post on HOX genes and cephalopod development that is good preliminary reading. How common are octopod defects? Below the fold is something we like to call Cephalopod Freak Show!

Heptapus: Gledall (1989) "A male specimen of Octopus is described which has only seven arms"
Double Tentacle Bifurcation in Moroteuthis ingens reported by Gonzalez and Guerra in JMBA.
A decapodous Octopus briareus reported by Toll and Binger (1991)
Super crazy branching in Japanese Octopuses reported by Okada (1965)
Henry the Hectapus

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Comments

Thanks, Craig. While I always find your cephalopod posts entertaining, I'm afraid that your new upstart has raised, er, lowered the bar considerably with his last posting on the reproductive lives of bone-eating worms. Now, if we just played around with your "double tentacle bifurcation"... on second thought, scratch that idea!

Posted by: FishGuyDave | March 4, 2008 7:20 PM

what is it

Posted by: pam | April 25, 2008 7:09 PM