Newly discovered 'Casper' octopod at risk from deep-sea mining
Monday, December 19, 2016 - 16:31
in Biology & Nature
Last spring, researchers made headlines with the discovery of what was surely a new species of octopod, crawling along the seafloor at a record-breaking ocean depth of more than 4,000 meters off of Hawaii. Now, a report reveals that these ghost-like, deep-sea octopods lay their eggs on the dead stalks of sponges attached to seafloor nodules rich in the increasingly valuable metals used in cell phones and computers.