Transparent Octopus

We took some video of a strange looking octopus in the Philippines. Still couldn't find positive ID. The fellow is tiny, was swimming close to the surface, but also touched down to the bottom sometimes. The attached picture is a taken from a video frame.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

wow really? zero reply, must be rarer than I had thought!

Its very cute, but I don't have any idea what it is. Sorry. I just wonder if it might be a juvenile.

My first thought was a young juvenile too. Search "octopus larva" in Google Images and you'll get some leads. You could also ask on the forum at tonmo.com.

Nick, thanks for that hint.

These images of pelagic octopus come pretty close. My ceph however was only 20 metres from shore and sometimes crawling on the sandy / seagrass bottom.

http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17585396

https://www.flickr.com/photos/17461014@N00/10570840575

would say a larval stage,so difficult to identify.

Mike Bartick has a photo of one in Alert Diver this month. Thought is that it could be a juvie Wonderpus.

Cheers,

Marli

It may also be a long arm octo. They are found in the same places. But I agree it is juvy.

Either way, it is a fabulous photo!

Thanks for the tip Marli. I will try to contact Mike about it.

The mystery still hasn't been solved. Here some feedback I received recently by Dr. Mike Vecchione from the Smithsonian in DC, Washington:

"I have seen quite a few Macrotritopus and this does not look like any of them. In that genus the ventrolateral arms are much longer than any of the other arm pairs. It could be any of the long-arm species with shallow webs. There are many such in addition to Wunderpus."

Any more suggestions, keep it coming.

Thanks.