In case you missed it, in the last few weeks we were
notified about the discovery of a new species of giant octopus along the Alaska
coast—the Frilled Giant Pacific Octopus.
The species was described as “hiding in plain sight.”
Dr. David Scheel of Alaska Pacific University described the
discovery and confirmation of the species in a presentation at the Alaska
Marine Science Symposium on January, 23, 2017.
Dr. Scheel explained the physical differences between the newly discovered
cryptic species, the “frilled GPO” and more common species of GPO. He highlighted the differences between the
two species using images taken in the laboratory. He then presented images 12 images of GPO recovered
from shrimp pots during a research cruise in Prince William Sound in October 2017. These octopi were on the deck of the
vessel. He then invited the audience to
identify which was the frilled species and which was not. It is not as easy as one would think.
A summary of the work can be found at the Alaska Octopus Project webpage
The story is even more remarkable when one considers that
the discovery is the result of an undergraduate senior project by Nathan
Hollenbeck. I met Nathan on Dive Alaska’s
boat, Bottom Time, about four or five
years ago and have had a chance to dive with him a couple of times since. I knew he was passionate about his work on
the octopus project, I now understand why.
It is quite remarkable to be credited with three refereed science
journal articles as an undergraduate, much less being credited with discovering
a new species of GPO. This status begs
the question “what do you do for an encore?”
Last time I saw Nathan was at the Cook Inlet Beluga Count activity at the
Alaska Zoo in September 2017. He was enthusiastically
doing an interpretive program and loving his job. Nice work, Nate.
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