More than 100 mother octopus hatched eggs in the deep sea

Octopus herds gather near warm water. This unusual behavior can cause them to lose their lives.

Scientists found more than 100 concentrated in a depth of about 3 km in the waters off Costa Rica, Fox News reported on April 18. They accidentally discovered the octopus when exploring Dorado Outcrop , the seabed of rock formed from volcanoes, with unmanned equipment.

"The first time I looked at the photo I thought they shouldn't be there, not with this depth and such a large amount," said Janet Voight, zoologist at Field Museum, Chicago.

Mother octopus sits side by side on the rock.(Photo: Field Museum).

The pinkish octopus herd is a new species of the genus Muusoctopus. They gather around crevices, where warm water flows. The fact that the octopus approached the high temperature surprised Voight.

"It is unreasonable for the deep-sea octopus to hatch eggs in such warm water, which is suicide. Exposure to high temperatures stimulates metabolism, making them need more oxygen than warm water can. This is not the ideal place for the octopus family to form , " said Field Museum representative. Scientists counted at least 186 eggs, but none showed signs of embryonic development.

Finding large numbers of octopus indicates that there may be a suitable environment for them to live nearby. " The octopus all lives only one batch of eggs. For this large population to continue to be maintained, there must be more octopus to replace the number of eggs and the dying mothers that we see," Voight said.

Voight and two scientists Geoff Wheat and Anne Hartwell shared images of mother octopus with experts on deep sea creatures. They hope to continue to study this strange behavior and gain many interesting findings.

"The focus of the expedition Dorado Outcrop is research. In the meantime, we happened to find an incubating octopus. This is the third hydrothermal system of this type to be sampled and there are still millions of similar environments. Self in the deep sea , " Wheat said.