A captivating video recently captured a pipe pushing octopus, attempting to roll the plastic material using eggs inside back into the ocean after it had been washed ashore in Melbourne, Australia.
FOX 26 report specified, earlier this month, Australian marine biologist Sheree Marris found a white pipe washed ashore on a beach "in Melbourne's McCrae" suburb. There and then, she decided to pick it up.
Nevertheless, when she went to get it, she saw reddish-colored legs that started to emerge from inside the pipe. There, she discovered an octopus.
Marris then began to record video of the octopus that was attempting to roll the plastic pipe, which, later on, Marris found, seemed to have eggs inside it, back into the ocean.
Extraordinary Discovery
In the background of the video, one would hear the marine biologist admiring the creature as it was slowly rolling the pipe back into the water, saying, "Look at that," and describing the discovery to be extraordinary.
Describing the octopus, Marris said, she was trying to shield her eggs inside, which were hanging as if they were little white chandeliers from her makeshift nursery's roof.
A similar Granthshalla News report said, ultimately, the marine biologist took the pipe out into the water and stabilized it in order for it not to "roll around and back up on the waters." She added it was one of the most extraordinary things she has ever seen.
How Octopus Moms Protect Their Eggs
In 2014, in a Reuters report, the research described how a female octopus dwelling nearly a mile underneath the sea would spend roughly four-and-a-half years brooding her eggs, shielding them vigilantly until they hatched while hunting for any food for herself.
In their study published in the PLOS ONE journal, the researchers described their finding as the longest-known egg-brooding period for an animal.
They used a remote-controlled submarine to observe the deep-sea species called "Graneledone boreopacifica," off central California's coast.
Specifically, in this 2014 study, the scientists followed one female, recognizable by its unique scars, that clung to a vertical rock face close to a canyon's floor approximately 4,600-feet under the surface, keeping the estimated 160 translucent eggs free of debris and silts, not to mention, chasing off predators.
The mother octopus in the study never left her oblong-shaped eggs, which, during the brooding period, developed from roughly the size of a blueberry to that of a grape's and was never observed eating anything.
Progressively, the octopus lost weight, and its skin turned loose and pale. The study authors monitored the octopus during 18 dives for more than 53 months between 2007 and 2011.
Powerful Maternal Instinct
According to deep-sea ecologist Bruce Robison at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in Moss Landing, California, the said species showed an extremely powerful maternal instinct.
He added it was unique, not to mention amazing. They were still astonished themselves, he added. Most female octopuses are laying a single set of eggs in a lifetime; then, they die shortly following their offspring hatch.
This species' newborns are no helpless babies. More so, the long brooding period allows the hatchlings to come out of their eggs distinctively of survival, evolving as a fully-developed miniature adult able to catch small prey.
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