''Muusoctopus levis'' is a species of

octopus An octopus ( : octopuses or octopodes, see below for variants) is a soft-bodied, eight- limbed mollusc of the order Octopoda (, ). The order consists of some 300 species and is grouped within the class Cephalopoda with squids, cuttlefis ...

in the

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Enteroctopodidae. It was first described by

William Evans Hoyle Dr William Evans Hoyle FRSE (28 January 1855 – 7 February 1926) was a noted British zoologist. A specialist in deep sea creatures he worked on classification and illustrations from the Challenger Expedition from 1882 to 1888. Life Hoyle ...

in 1885 in an article in the ''

Annals and Magazine of Natural History The ''Journal of Natural History'' is a scientific journal published by Taylor & Francis focusing on entomology and zoology. The journal was established in 1841 under the name ''Annals and Magazine of Natural History'' (''Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.'') an ...

'' detailing the new species of octopus found on as part of the ''Challenger'' expedition; the

type specimen In biology, a type is a particular specimen (or in some cases a group of specimens) of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached. In other words, a type is an example that serves to anchor or centralizes the ...

was retrieved from the

Southern Ocean The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica. With a size of , it is regarded as the second-smal ...

. The species is found in

subantarctic The sub-Antarctic zone is a region in the Southern Hemisphere, located immediately north of the Antarctic region. This translates roughly to a latitude of between 46° and 60° south of the Equator. The subantarctic region includes many islands ...

waters in the Southern Ocean, particularly surrounding

Heard Island The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI) is an Australian external territory comprising a volcanic group of mostly barren Antarctic islands, about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica. The group's overall size ...

and

Kerguelen Island The Kerguelen Islands ( or ; in French commonly ' but officially ', ), also known as the Desolation Islands (' in French), are a group of islands in the sub-Antarctic constituting one of the two exposed parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, a la ...

, but specimens comparable to ''M. levis'' have also been found at the

Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic Peninsula, known as O'Higgins Land in Chile and Tierra de San Martín in Argentina, and originally as Graham Land in the United Kingdom and the Palmer Peninsula in the United States, is the northernmost part of mainland Antarctic ...

Description

It is known to inhabit shallow depths between . It is

predator Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill ...

y, living and feeding in the benthic zone, where it feeds heavily on brittle stars. In a study in which the stomach contents of 70 specimens were examined, around 50 were shown to have fed only on brittle stars. A study on the reproductive strategies of

coleoid Subclass Coleoidea, or Dibranchiata, is the grouping of cephalopods containing all the various taxa popularly thought of as "soft-bodied" or "shell-less" (i.e., octopuses, squid and cuttlefish). Unlike its extant sister group, Nautiloidea, whose ...

cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda ( Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusively marine animals are characterized by bilateral body symmetry, a prominent head, ...

s concluded, while "a simultaneous terminal spawning strategy is most likely" for ''M. levis'', "the egg-length frequency graphs and multivariate analysis also suggest a greater variation in egg-lengths which could lead to spawning over an extended period". The study collected five female ''M. levis'' specimens from the Southern Ocean. They weighed from and the mantle length was from . ''M. levis'' is similar in appearance to another species in the same genus, '' Muusoctopus rigbyae'', which was first described in 2009 based on specimens found in Antarctic trawling surveys near the Antarctic Peninsula, and while similar in appearance, differs from ''M. levis'' in its arm length, the depth of its

interdigital webbing Interdigital webbing is the presence of membranes of skin between the digits. Normally in mammals, webbing is present in the embryo but resorbed later in development, but in various mammal species it occasionally persists in adulthood. In humans ...

, and specific details of its

hectocotylus A hectocotylus (plural: ''hectocotyli'') is one of the arms of male cephalopod A cephalopod is any member of the molluscan class Cephalopoda ( Greek plural , ; "head-feet") such as a squid, octopus, cuttlefish, or nautilus. These exclusive ...

. Further, the species is found in slightly deeper waters, having been recorded at depths between .

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3198397 Octopuses Fauna of the Southern Ocean Molluscs described in 1885 Taxa named by William Evans Hoyle