Possible new deep-sea octopus species found off T&T

Sci­en­tists ex­plor­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s deep wa­ters have col­lect­ed what could be the first known spec­i­men of an un­known deep-sea oc­to­pus, a dis­cov­ery that may rep­re­sent a species new to sci­ence.

The spec­i­men was found dur­ing the coun­try’s first Trinidad and To­ba­go-led deep-sea sci­en­tif­ic ex­pe­di­tion aboard the re­search ves­sel RV Falkor (too).

The ex­pe­di­tion team an­nounced on so­cial me­dia that re­searchers col­lect­ed what is cur­rent­ly be­lieved to be the on­ly spec­i­men of its kind ever re­cov­ered.

Sci­en­tists will now study the oc­to­pus’ anato­my and DNA to de­ter­mine whether it is a species pre­vi­ous­ly un­known to sci­ence. If con­firmed, it will be for­mal­ly de­scribed and giv­en a sci­en­tif­ic name.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions about whether the an­i­mal would be re­turned to the ocean, the team ex­plained that while some deep-sea crea­tures oc­ca­sion­al­ly sur­vive be­ing brought to the sur­face, it is high­ly un­like­ly this oc­to­pus could with­stand the dra­mat­ic changes in pres­sure and tem­per­a­ture.

In­stead, the spec­i­men will be pre­served for sci­en­tif­ic re­search.

Re­searchers said de­tailed ex­am­i­na­tion will help de­ter­mine whether it is a new species and pro­vide valu­able in­for­ma­tion about Trinidad and To­ba­go’s deep-sea bio­di­ver­si­ty.

Once sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies are com­plet­ed, the spec­i­men will re­main in Trinidad and To­ba­go as part of a mu­se­um col­lec­tion, where it will be avail­able to sci­en­tists, re­searchers, ed­u­ca­tors and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

The ex­pe­di­tion team said dis­cov­er­ies such as this demon­strate the im­por­tance of ex­plor­ing the deep ocean.

“Every dive has the po­ten­tial to re­veal some­thing the world has nev­er seen be­fore,” the team said.

The month-long mis­sion, which runs from June 29 to Ju­ly 28, is bring­ing to­geth­er lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al sci­en­tists to ex­plore some of the least-stud­ied parts of the coun­try’s ma­rine ter­ri­to­ry. The ex­pe­di­tion is led by Trinidad and To­ba­go deep-sea bi­ol­o­gist Dr Di­va Amon and is in­ves­ti­gat­ing ecosys­tems that have nev­er be­fore been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly ex­plored by a lo­cal-led team. More than 90 per cent of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s ma­rine ju­ris­dic­tion lies be­yond recre­ation­al div­ing depths, mak­ing the deep ocean the coun­try’s largest and least un­der­stood ecosys­tem.