Scientists Discover Why Thousands of Octopuses Congregate Off the Monterey Coast Transcript

Well, Aaron, the octopus is normally a solitary creature, so imagine the surprise of marine scientists who found thousands of them in the deep sea, and now their years of research has finally been published.

(00:12)
Researchers call this the octopus garden. It’s the largest known octopus nursery in the world, with about 20,000 of these eight legged cephalopods called pearl octopi. They’re located two miles down and 80 miles off the coast of Moss Landing.

It was a moment where we saw it and we all took a breath. We all got excited together, and we just started babbling about what could this mean, why were they here.

Amanda Kahn of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories is one of a group of researchers that first made the discovery in 2018 by accident, while serving Davidson Seamount, an extinct underwater volcano.

I am actually a sponge researcher, and I was invited to come along to help identify the sponges that were out there, and instead we stumbled upon this octopus garden.

Five years later, a new first of its kind study co-authored by MBARI and other researchers has the answer. It found that the octopi migrate, drawn by the thermal springs. At about 51 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s the perfect temperature for the eggs.

We were able to measure their metabolism, and we found that their metabolism speeds up in that warmer water, and that means that their eggs develop faster than they would in the otherwise frigid waters.

Normally at frigid depths like this, the eggs take five to eight years to hatch, but here it takes under two years. It’s a discovery that MBARI says wouldn’t have been possible without recent advances in sub-sea technology.

We sit in the ship with pilots flying this tethered vehicle two miles below the surface. They’re controlling it, and they’re able to drive this Volkswagen van-sized remotely operated robot right to a distance of about a foot or two away from these octopus.

But scientists say there’s still a lot of research to be done. This octopus nursery is only one of a handful known to the world, many of which are on thermal springs, and there could be more along the California coast.

(02:04)
And researchers tell me that they found another group of octopi not too far away from this octopus garden, but have yet to visit it, so they don’t know the scale of it just yet, but MBARI says that they have an expedition in the works.

(02:16)
Live in Moss landing, I’m Christian Balderas, KSBW, Action News 8.