Bolitaenidae

[GPO87]

This family contains 2 genera. They are deep sea octopuses found in tropic and temperate waters circumglobally.


Japetella diaphana

Info at:
Bolitaeninae

 

[OB]

Thanks for sharing all these relatively unknown species with us, I'm truly enjoying the effort!

 

[GPO87]

no problem! I figured it was about time to see some weird and wonderful cephs! If I do a couple a day I won't go TOO crazy! (hopefully)

 

[DWhatley]

I'm glad to see someone else posting to this forum! Even I forget that I have posted some nice ID information in the octopuses more common to our tanks. Adding these cool guys will help remind us to look here.

Are you working with any of these that you are posting in school or just taking advantage of the need to post them to help familiarize yourself better?

 

[GPO87]

Well D, I'm not working with any of these, but the squids that both heather and I are working on, seem to be neglected from these forums! haha. So those will get added evenutally. But this is something I've been wanting to do for a while, because I LOVE ceph diversity. I just figured I have some free time every now and then, might as well post some cool squidz!

 

[DWhatley]

When you get to your squids, please id them as such and give us a little info about what the two of you are doing with them

 

[GPO87]

Females of Japetella diaphana develop this large photophore around their beak at maturity.

 

[DWhatley]

THAT would be something to see!

 

[Firefly]

Just simply amazing!

 

[GPO87]

Also interesting to note the single row of suckers on each arm. I guess that is one reason this is classified as an "octopod" and not an "octopus". Hmmmmm, very interesting....

 

[jeffday]

schmidt saw one of these on the way down during their last expedition in the pescadero basin

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1455545929700892686

 

[jeffday]

another one from an older NOAA expedition

 

[jeffday]

schmidt saw one of these last night, never seen one interact with the seafloor before. link is to timestamp of observation start:

Seamount East of San Cristóbal Island | SOI Divestream 581

For our fifth dive exploring vertical reefs of the Galapagos, we will begin at a depth of 820m and move upslope to a depth of 200m along a route ~4.4 km in l...

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