Resumo: |
This is an octopus. It has 2 rows of suckers on each arm and 8 arms. This narrows it down a bit. It is a female as no reproductive arm (hectocotylus) is visible on the third right arm. Using an old reference on the recorded deep-water octopus from the GoM (Voss, 1956) I can narrow it down further. It could be in the genus Benthoctopus, which would make it Benthoctopus januarii (the only species in this genus in the Gulf of Mexico according to Voss), but this species has long arms (5 x length of mantle), which doesn't seem to be quite the case in the photo (although all ID is based on dead specimens). Other option is Pteroctopus tetracirrhus.
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