''Paroctopus'' is a small genus of

octopus An octopus (: octopuses or octopodes) 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, cuttlefish, and nautiloids. Like oth ...

es from the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Octopodidae. ''Paroctopus'' are small-bodied; short mantled, pouch like octopuses with short, stocky arms which are 2 or 3 times the length of the mantle. The males have 1-3 enlarged suckers on each arm with their right third arm being

hectocotylised A hectocotylus (: hectocotyli) is one of the cephalopod limb, arms of male cephalopods that is specialized to store and transfer spermatophores to the female. Structurally, hectocotyli are muscular hydrostats. Depending on the species, the male ma ...

and shorter than its opposite arm. There are stylets and these are non-mineralised. One to 3 enlarged suckers on all arms of males only. The ligula is of medium size with a short calamus. Their gills have 6‑8 lamellae per outer demibranch. ''Paroctopus'' lays small to medium-sized eggs which are on very short stalks and are attached singly in small clusters within the empty shells of

gastropod Gastropods (), commonly known as slugs and snails, belong to a large Taxonomy (biology), taxonomic class of invertebrates within the phylum Mollusca called Gastropoda (). This class comprises snails and slugs from saltwater, freshwater, and fro ...

s and

bivalve Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class (biology), class of aquatic animal, aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed b ...

s. They are uniformly coloured with little variation in pattern and they lack a patch and groove system. There is a faint frontal white spot complex. The integument lacks large primary papillae. The species of Paroctopus are distributed in the northeastern Pacific Ocean off Mexico and the

Gulf of California The Gulf of California (), also known as the Sea of Cortés (''Mar de Cortés'') or Sea of Cortez, or less commonly as the Vermilion Sea (''Mar Vermejo''), is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean that separates the Baja California peninsula from ...

and in the western Atlantic Ocean, the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

and the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico () is an oceanic basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, mostly surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north, and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States; on the southw ...

Species

The following species are assigned to ''Paroctopus'': *'' Paroctopus araneoides'' * Taki, 1964 *'' Paroctopus digueti'' (Perrier & Rochebrune, 1894) *'' Paroctopus mercatoris'' (

Adam Adam is the name given in Genesis 1–5 to the first human. Adam is the first human-being aware of God, and features as such in various belief systems (including Judaism, Christianity, Gnosticism and Islam). According to Christianity, Adam ...

, 1937) The species listed above with an asterisk (*) are ''

taxon inquirendum In biological classification, a ''species inquirenda'' is a species of doubtful identity requiring further investigation. The use of the term in English-language biological literature dates back to at least the early nineteenth century. The ter ...

'' and need further study to determine if they are valid species or synonyms.

References

Octopuses Cephalopod genera Taxa named by Adolf Naef {{octopus-stub