Grimpoteuthis Tuftsi
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''Grimpoteuthis tuftsi'' is an octopus known from seven specimens.


Description and habitat

The specimens were caught by
bottom trawling Bottom trawling is trawling (towing a trawl, which is a fishing net) along the seafloor. It is also referred to as "dragging". The scientific community divides bottom trawling into benthic trawling and Demersal zone, demersal trawling. Benthic tra ...
in the Northeastern Pacific Ocean. This octopus was found 3,900 meters deep in the
abyssal plain An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between . Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth's surface. They ...
and on the
continental slope A continental margin is the outer edge of continental crust abutting oceanic crust under coastal waters. It is one of the three major zones of the ocean floor, the other two being deep-ocean basins and mid-ocean ridges. The continental margi ...
. It is potentially a
demersal The demersal zone is the part of the sea or ocean (or deep lake) consisting of the part of the water column near to (and significantly affected by) the seabed and the benthos. The demersal zone is just above the benthic zone and forms a layer o ...
species, which means it would live close to the seafloor. The largest of the seven specimens was 475 millimeters in length. Its mantle is 102 millimeters. Each arm has between 63 and 75 suckers; of the suckers, the largest are 2.5 millimeters across. The suckers of ''Grimpoteuthis tuftsi'' aren't different sizes or shapes based on the
sex Sex is the biological trait that determines whether a sexually reproducing organism produces male or female gametes. During sexual reproduction, a male and a female gamete fuse to form a zygote, which develops into an offspring that inheri ...
of the specimen. Its
shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...
is shaped somewhat like the letter "W".


References

Octopuses Molluscs of the Pacific Ocean Taxa named by William G. Pearcy Cephalopods described in 1990 {{octopus-stub