This Mother Waited 53 Months in the Dark. Here's Why

In April 2007, a research robot 4,600 feet down in Monterey Canyon found a deep-sea octopus crawling toward a bare rock. Thirty-eight days later she was on that rock, wrapped around her eggs. The scientists came back eighteen times. She was there for 53 months, as they counted it: the longest egg-brooding period ever recorded for any animal. This documentary follows that one rock from 2007 to 2011: why cold water stretches an embryo's development, what four and a half years of guarding cost the mother, the optic glands that end an octopus mother's life, and the Octopus Garden at Davidson Seamount, where thousands of pearl octopus mothers nest on warm springs and their eggs hatch in under two years. Chapters 0:00 The rock at 4,600 feet 1:04 A detour to the bottom 2:39 Eighteen visits 3:53 What the cold does 5:19 The cost 6:34 October 2011 7:52 The garden 9:12 Warm water, fast eggs 11:03 The answer Sources Robison, Seibel & Drazen (2014). Deep-Sea Octopus (Graneledone boreopacifica) Conducts the Longest-Known Egg-Brooding Period of Any Animal. PLOS ONE 9(7): e103437: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.... Barry et al. (2023). Abyssal hydrothermal springs - Cryptic incubators for brooding octopus. Science Advances 9(34): eadg3247: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adg3247 Wodinsky (1977). Hormonal inhibition of feeding and death in octopus. Science 198:948: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.198.4... Wang & Ragsdale (2018). Multiple optic gland signaling pathways implicated in octopus maternal behaviors and death. J. Exp. Biol. 221: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.185751 Wang, Pergande, Ragsdale & Cologna (2022). Steroid hormones of the octopus self-destruct system. Current Biology 32: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.04... Robison, Reisenbichler & Sherlock (2017). The coevolution of midwater research and ROV technology at MBARI. Oceanography 30(4): https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2017.421 MBARI (2023). Scientists solve mystery of why thousands of octopus migrate to deep-sea thermal springs: https://www.mbari.org/news/scientists... MBARI (2014). Deep-sea octopus broods eggs for over four years: https://www.mbari.org/deep-sea-octopu... Schmidt Ocean Institute (2023). Scientists discover new deep-sea octopus nurseries in Costa Rica: https://schmidtocean.org/scientists-d... Gannon (2014). Deep-Sea 'Octomom' Guards Eggs for Record 4.5 Years. Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/47103-oct... CNN (2023). Octopus garden deep-sea mystery solved: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/08/23/wo... Guinness World Records. Longest egg-brooding period: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/... Credits Photographs of the brooding female and her eggs, and Fig. 6: Robison, Seibel & Drazen (2014), PLOS ONE 9(7): e103437, CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., cropped. Video of Graneledone boreopacifica: NOAA Ocean Exploration, 2023 Shakedown + EXPRESS West Coast Exploration (public domain), cropped. Photos (public domain): NOAA Ocean Exploration (Seascape Alaska 2023; Deep Connections 2019; Windows to the Deep 2019). Maps and charts (public domain): NOAA (Monterey Canyon bathymetric chart, 1989; Monterey Canyon system; Davidson Seamount bathymetry), US Coast and Geodetic Survey (Davidson Seamount, 1933), George Davidson (Monterey 'Submerged Valley', 1897, NOAA Photo Library). Coastlines: Natural Earth. Giant Pacific octopus eggs: Laura James, CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/..., Wikimedia Commons (Eggs_of_Giant_Pacific_Octopus.webm). Deep-sea fish: NOAA Okeanos Explorer (CC0, Wikimedia Commons). Stock footage: Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons. Music: original score generated for the channel with ACE-Step. Scenes marked "AI reconstruction" and the drawn illustrations are AI-generated; no footage of this mother exists apart from the published photographs credited above. The narration voice is AI-generated. The script was researched and written by the channel and fact-checked against the sources listed. #DeepSea #Octopus #MontereyCanyon