A deep-sea octopus that guards its offspring for around four and a half years has set a new record for longest brooding time, researchers said in a new PLOS ONE study.
The female observed to brood her eggs for an astonishing 53 months was first noticed in 2007 heading toward a rock wall often used by brooding octopuses, National Geographic reported.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute team that had seen the octopus, which is of the Graneledone boreopacifica species, a month later found her brooding her eggs and identified her by the scars on her arms.
"The first time that we dropped back down... and realized that she had gone up and laid a clutch of eggs, it was very exciting," said head researcher Bruce Robison, as quoted by BBC News. "We knew that we had the beginning. No one had ever had the good fortune to come upon the beginning of a brooding period."
The previous record for longest time guarding eggs was a giant red shrimp with a brooding time of 20 months.
Coming back 18 times during the next 53 months, the research team documented the growth of the offspring concurrent with the slow deterioration of the mother octopus. The scientists thought she wouldn't last, but the octopus stuck it out until October 2011.
She was gone then, and more than 150 egg casings were broken open. The team believes that the mother octopus likely didn't eat for the entire 53 months of brooding since most octopuses don't eat while guarding eggs and are never observed away from their offspring.
"Everything we know suggests she probably didn't eat," said Robison. He credits the incredibly low temperatures in ocean depths, which "slows everything down," including octopus metabolism.
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