An octopus garden seems like the perfect description for aggregations of hundreds of octopuses—most of them brooding females—at the base of Davidson Seamount, just outside of Monterey Bay. The aggregations of Muusoctopus robustus were discovered in late 2018 during a NOAA Ocean Exploration cruise. Along with NOAA collaborators who discovered the site, MBARI returned to the Octopus Garden in 2019 to investigate these curious aggregations. Researchers collected data about the warm springs around the egg clusters and the respiration rates of the octopuses to learn more about any advantage they gain from nesting in cozy warm waters.
Octopus Garden
The birth of a Hawaiian island
One hundred thousand years from now, Hawaii’s youngest volcanic island will puncture the surface of the North Pacific Ocean.