I’ve been busy dissertating and haven’t posted for a long time, but what better way to get back in the blog game than to talk about mobs of octopuses! And before you cringe about the pluralization of the word “octopus” check out grammerly’s page here, and the following video settling the debate once and for all (octopuses, octopi, and octopodes oh my!):

But before I digress too far, the cool bit of marine science-y news is that scientists have just spotted a huge amassment of octopuses watching over their eggs. These brooding cephlapods adopted an inverted protective posture with tentacles facing outward. This observation was made at the Davidson Sea Mount, which was subsumed into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary in 2008. Interestingly, this is only the second time such an aggregation has been observed, but this recent discovery comes only a short time after work published about a smaller example of the phenomenon spotted in Costa Rica most likely involving the same genus.

The following video footage is of the sighting paired with background discussion from the scientists who were stoked about what they were witnessing:

I love these videos as they sometimes remind me of the scientist version of Mystery Science Theater 3000. That’s especially true of this amusing video of a gulper eel’s defensive behavior, also filmed during the same series of Nautilis expeditions responsible for the octopus footage:

Other interesting observations of octopus behavior have also been observed off the Monterey Bay area including an example of a deep sea octopus who brooded over her eggs for four years.