The Search for a Model Octopus That Won’t Die After Laying Its Eggs

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Roy Caldwell, a behavioral ecologist on the College of California, Berkeley, first met Octopus chierchiae, additionally known as the lesser Pacific striped octopus, within the mid-Seventies in Panama. He was pulling rocks from the ocean to search out mantis shrimp hiding in cracks. “Each every now and then, these cute little striped octopus would come out,” he mentioned.

He introduced just a few of the octopuses again to Berkeley. Quickly after, “One of many females laid eggs, and I believed that was form of a bummer as a result of I knew that she would die,” Dr. Caldwell mentioned. “And he or she didn’t die.” A few months later, she laid eggs once more.

A 1984 paper by Arcadio Rodaniche, a Panamanian scientist, confirmed Dr. Caldwell’s statement: Females of this species, in contrast to almost each different octopus, may reproduce a number of occasions.

This trait, mixed with their handy measurement, made them an attractive topic for lab analysis. Sadly, Dr. Caldwell couldn’t discover any extra in Panama. Not one of the biologists or collectors he requested had seen any, both.

The little cephalopod was solely a reminiscence till round 2010, when “I obtained an e-mail from a highschool pupil,” Dr. Caldwell mentioned, “who needed to know the way he may deal with his new pet octopus.” The scholar despatched a photograph. The octopus’s zebra stripes have been unmistakable.

Dr. Caldwell traced the octopus again to a collector in Nicaragua. Lastly, he may get hold of just a few lesser Pacific striped octopuses and attempt to get a colony getting in his lab. However over three or 4 years of makes an attempt, he by no means obtained previous the second technology. After that, Dr. Caldwell mentioned, the females’ eggs didn’t hatch. He suspected inbreeding was an issue, in addition to weight loss program. “We didn’t know fairly what to feed them.”

That query was nonetheless unanswered in 2016, when Dr. Rosenthal got here to the Marine Organic Laboratory with a dream of constructing mannequin cephalopods to help scientific analysis. He recruited Mr. Grasse, who was often known as one thing of a cephalopod whisperer, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. Taylor Sakmar, additionally a Monterey Bay aquarist, got here to Cape Cod to assist construct a brand new form of facility for many-armed animals.