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Examining The Presence Of A Possible Species Complex Of Octopus Joubini (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) In The Eastern Gulf Of Mexico, Haley Holloway
Examining The Presence Of A Possible Species Complex Of Octopus Joubini (Cephalopoda: Octopodidae) In The Eastern Gulf Of Mexico, Haley Holloway
USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations
The Pygmy Octopus Octopus joubini (Robson, 1929) is a small, shallow water species found throughout the Gulf of Mexico (GoM), western Atlantic Ocean and the northeastern Caribbean Sea (Mather, 1982; Jereb & Roper, 2014; Judkins, 2009). This species is believed to belong to a complex based upon morphological features including arm length, web depth, sucker size, egg size, hatchling ecology, and chromatophore coloration. It has been proposed that Octopus mercatoris, another pygmy species found in the GoM, may belong in this complex; however, no analyses have been performed to verify this claim. The present study incorporated morphological comparisons with …