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Haliphron Atlanticus – a Giant Gelatinous Octopus

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Haliphron Atlanticus – a Giant Gelatinous Octopus Issue No. 5 A quarterly newsletter on aquatic biodiversity 2002 Haliphron atlanticus – a giant gelatinous octopus rocessing species that are new to science, or newly juvenile, caught at depths less recorded from New Zealand waters, has become routine than 33 m, although a few larger Pat NIWA’s museum laboratory in Wellington. So, too, animals have been found at has the receiving of large numbers of very large animals from depths exceeding 250 m where research-trawl bycatch. One such animal was delivered in they are thought to live on or November: a frozen 61 kg “squid” collected from a depth of near the sea floor. Very few 920 m southeast of the Chatham Islands. Just how unusual adults are known. The species this animal would prove to be was not immediately apparent, was thought to attain a mantle at least not in its frozen state. It was no squid – it was a giant length of 0.4 m and a total octopus. length of 2 m. The incomplete specimen at NIWA has a Since the New mantle length of 0.69 m and Haliphron atlanticus. Zealand a total length of 2.9 m. If it octopus fauna were intact, it would probably A closer look at the giant was last revised have been a further 0.5−1 m long. cephalopod. in 1999, two new species It is remarkable, given the predominance of juveniles in have been collections from areas where this species is known to occur, caught in the that they have not been collected before in New Zealand deep sea – one waters. But what is more remarkable is that the animal was a species of caught on the Chatham Rise at a depth of less than 1000 m, Benthoctopus, an area and depth extensively trawled for decades. It is hard the other of to believe that such a large animal, had it been caught before, Opisthoteuthis, both weighing about 1 kg. The present 61 kg could have gone unnoticed on a trawler deck. Either it has frozen lump not only dwarfs everything else known from New escaped trawl nets for decades or it usually resides in areas Zealand waters, it dwarfs all known octopods worldwide – and/or at depths that we have yet to regularly sample. and it is incomplete! As the morphology and anatomy of this species have not The frozen lump proved to be the first confirmed South Pacific been reported in detail, especially based on a specimen so record of the very rare gelatinous octopus Haliphron atlanticus, large and mature, this unique female will be fully described and the largest specimen known. This species, also known as separately. This animal brings the total number of octopus Alloposus mollis, has had a rather unusual history in New species known from New Zealand waters to 42, a figure Zealand waters and in the literature. It was admitted into our likely to increase as our collections include specimens from fauna in 1995 on the basis of two erroneous citations. One new locations and depths. was based on beaks attributed to this species recovered from sperm whales caught and processed in the south Tasman Sea, Capture details: NIWA Stn Z10911: F, ML 0.69 m, TL 2.90 m, well outside the New Zealand EEZ; the other was based on a weight 61.0 kg (pre-fix, wet measures defrosted; specimen beak identified from regurgitations of a wandering albatross incomplete), 44°33.8−33.2’ S, 175°45.3−44.2’ W, 922−920 m, chick on Antipodes Island, whose parent had been sourcing 26/10/2001, bottom temperature 6.0 °C, R.V. Tangaroa Stn food from Australian waters. As neither record localised TAN0117/03. Haliphron within New Zealand waters, and in situ captured specimens were not represented in collections, this species was struck from our faunal inventory. Steve O’Shea [[email protected]] The ecology of Haliphron is poorly understood, though it has been recorded that the female broods eggs within her arms, and that it is usually, but not exclusively, associated with island or continental slopes. Most known Haliphron are NIWA NIWA biologist leads international sponge taxonomy workshop ew drugs to combat the world’s most feared diseases may be found on the ocean floor in sea sponges. NScientists are investigating the potential of sea sponges to provide new drugs that can fight the bacteria that cause diseases such as anthrax, smallpox, tuberculosis, and malaria. Few scientists have the expertise to locate and identify sponge species, a necessary first step to unlocking the medical potential of these primitive creatures, so training workshops are necessary. Dr Michelle Kelly Shanks from NIWA recently led a 3 day A new species of Petrosidae which provides an workshop at the University of Mississippi to help scientists antimalarial compound. develop the skills necessary to identify sponge species. She Dr Kelly Shanks says that the potential to find new drugs is hopes this will lead to an international network of specialists only as good as our understanding of their taxonomic working together on sponge biotechnology projects. relationships, and thus the differences between species. The more species that we can recognise, the better we can target The workshop focused on Indo-Pacific and Atlantic sponges related sponges that might have related chemical compounds and was organised at the request of Dr Mark Hamann, of the with similar or better biochemical activity. The potential is university’s Department of Pharmacognosy, whose group of huge. Sponges don’t move, but are able to use their own staff and students have been working for some time on metabolites to fend off fungal infections, predators, and extracting compounds from sponges to fight various diseases. bacterial invaders. Some of these compounds have amazing Students from China, Egypt, India, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, specificity to human diseases. The deep-sea Atlantic sponge Pakistan, and the United States participated in the workshop. Discoderma produces a compound with great potential for Many were pharmacologists, and some had a basic knowledge the treatment of breast cancer which is currently undergoing of plant taxonomy, but others had no experience with clinical trials in the United States. microscopy or animals. Dr Kelly Shanks worked with Harbor Branch Oceanographic This was the latest in a series of workshops run by Dr Kelly Institution scientists in Florida in the search for potential Shanks (the last one was at the University of the South Pacific new drugs in the early 1990s. She is now involved in one of in Suva). It was taught using a combination of lectures and NIWA’s major research programmes, to discover similar drugs practical exercises to help the participants recognise and materials of use to humans and animals. Only about characteristics that identify sponge species. After three 1% of compounds from sponges have drug potential because intensive days the participants were able to identify the sponge they are often too toxic to living cells and it takes a long species that they were using in their own research. time to test and develop them. However, even if the compounds found do not lead to clinically useable drugs, they can still help scientists to design better drug molecules to target specific diseases. Dr Kelly Shanks has studied sponges for 25 years and is one of only a handful of scientists worldwide with a broad knowledge of the world’s sponge biodiversity. She works closely with Dr Hamann, who is currently investigating whether a compound extracted from a range of new sponge species from Indonesia is safe and effective for the treatment of malaria and tuberculosis. The prognosis for their research is exciting, and the programme has the backing of the World Health Organization. There are over 700 sponge species known in New Zealand waters. Many are rare and under threat from coastal dredging and seamount fishing. We are finding new species all the Background cover photo: time and most are endemic to the New Zealand region. Gorgonian sea fans, sponges, and other filter feeding invertebrates, Three Kings Islands. Michelle Wilkinson [[email protected]] Photo by Malcolm Francis 2 Biodiversity Update 5 NIWA Bioturbation is a key process in soft-sediment ecosystems hat happens to marine organisms of mudflats and burrowing crabs (Helice crassa) and common cockles offshore soft-bottom areas when mud and silt are (Austrovenus stutchburyi) is essential in mixing and Wdeposited there by human activities or storms? remobilising land-derived clay deposits in estuaries. In Okura Experiments by NIWA ecologists are clarifying the crucial estuary, just north of Auckland, mud crabs were the only roles of bioturbators in maintaining or restoring biodiversity surviving benthic animals after the deposition of layers of in these habitats. clay up to 9 cm thick. Burrowing by the crabs resulted in reworking of the clay layer to provide traps for natural Some of the species sediment, which enhanced the recovery of the macrofauna. in soft sediments Similarly, the activities of cockles in Whitford estuary in are responsible for speeding up the erosion of thin (less than 1 cm) clay deposits the structure and were evident within one tidal cycle. functioning of their habitats. These organisms, known as bioturbators, constantly disturb the sediment by Mounds of sediment expelled from burrowing and ghost-shrimp (Callianassa filholi) feeding. Their burrows on an intertidal mudflat. activities mix the sediment layers and cause substantial resuspension of the sediment and its transport by waves and currents. At the same time, bioturbation enhances organic decomposition, nutrient cycling, redistribution of organic material, and oxygenation of sediment, rather as earthworms do on land. These changes greatly affect estuarine and seafloor habitats, with repercussions for the entire soft-sediment ecosystem.
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