blog.jihanchao.com
November 2, 2010

From Boing Boing:

This lovely orange Cirrate octopus appears to be the long-lost love child of a sock puppet and a dance recital costume. Filmed in the Taney Seamounts, west of San Francisco, it’s part of a branch of the octopus family that is very elusive—preferring deep, dark waters far from the coastline—very rare—they only make up about 15% of all octopus species—and very, very old. In fact, what is thought to be the oldest octopus fossil yet found is a cirrate, dating around 296 million years old.

Check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute on youtube for more videos. From the youtube page:

These finned octopuses belong to an order of animals called Cirrata named for the presence of hair-like structures called ‘cirri’ on their arms which may aid these animals in the capture of food.