Psychedelic Pareledone

[enrico]

There's a piece called Strange New Creatures Found in Antarctica at livescience.com that features a neat picture of what is referred to as a "newfound psychedelic octopus." Or, a Pareledone Turqueti, according to the picture caption.

 

[cthulhu77]

That whole site is great, thanks for the link!

 

[Nancy]

But what's psychedelic about that octopus?

Nancy

 

[Phil]

And what's new about it, aside from the stunning picture? From Mark Norman's guide:

Paraledone turqueti

Size: Body to 6cm, arms to 12cm.
Dist: Western Antarctica.

This small octopus lives in the freezing waters around the entire continent of Antarctica (circumpolar) (Ed: hang on, didn't he just say it was Western Antarctica?), from shallow coastal waters to at least 4,000m deep.

It is recognised by the absence of a skin ridge round the body and the nearly smooth skin scattered with low granular bumps. Females produce large eggs which probably take a long time to mature in these sub-zero waters. The resulting large hatchlings would immediately adopt a bottom-living lifestyle.

 

[enrico]

But what's psychedelic about that octopus?

I don't know what the journalist was thinking, but with this ceph's groovy colors and eight arms spread out in perfect symmetry as in the picture, I can easily see how people get associations to Hindu-inspired far-out hippie art and psychedelic mysticism (I often get a weird sacral feeling like that myself when looking at cephs) I'm sure you've seen the colorful depictions of old Vedic gods and goddesses with four, eight and even ten arms, right? I mean, compare the paraledone pic above with the cover of Hendrix's Axis Bold as Love and you'll see the connection..

And what's new about it, aside from the stunning picture?

Certainly beats me.. I mean, they even included the proper Latin name in the picture caption so... In any case, I just thought it was a really neat picture!

 

[cthulhu77]

It made this morning's news here in the sticks !

 

[Toren]

So when was it discovered?

And what's new about it, aside from the stunning picture? From Mark Norman's guide:

 

[Phil]

So when was it discovered?

According to the excellent Tree of Life entry it was discovered in 1905, and indeed, a quick search reveals that it was described in that year by L. Joubin in his paper: Description de deux Eledons provenant de l'expedition du Dr. Charcot dans l'Antarctique. Memoires de la Societe Zoologique de France, 18. 22-31..

From the Tree of Life pages:

Pareledone is the most abundant and diverse cephalopod genus in Antarctica. It is restricted to the continental shelf and slope margins (in depths of less than 1000 m) of Antarctica and the surrounding islands of the Southern Ocean. Members of the genus tend to be small; total length reaches 95 mm (mantle length 30 mm) in the smallest species, and 350 mm (mantle length 100 mm) in the largest. The first specimens of this genus were caught in 1905, but because of the inaccessibility of their habitat there is still only limited information available on their behaviour and life history. They have no commercial value.

 

[Phil]

Here is a 2001 paper that is of related interest:

A study on octopodids from the eastern Weddell Sea, Antarctica

Pareledone apparantly dominates the Antarctic octopod fauna.