Topic
Scaeurgus
About: Scaeurgus is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2 publications have been published within this topic receiving 55 citations.
Papers
TL;DR: Deep-water trawl surveys on seamounts around New Caledonia yielded 62 specimens of the littleknown genus Scaeurgus, containing three distinct new species from a small area and a pygmy member of this genus for the first time.
Abstract: Deep-water trawl surveys on seamounts around New Caledonia yielded 62 specimens of the littleknown genus, Scaeurgus. Members of this genus of octopuses typically occur at depths of 200– 500 m in temperate and tropical latitudes worldwide. Prior to this study, Scaeurgus was considered to contain one to two species. The new material from New Caledonia contained a surprising diversity of Scaeurgus species from a small area: three distinct new species are described and limited material of a further two taxa is reported. A pygmy member of this genus is reported for the first time. Distributions of these new taxa are consistent with reports of high endemism on the seamount systems in this region. Fifty-eight of the 62 specimens were collected from seamounts, with four of the five taxa unique to a single seamount.
15 citations
TL;DR: Strong evidence indicates that the family Octopodidae is paraphyletic and contains the gelatinous pelagic families and is placed within the superfamily Octopodoidea.
Abstract: Difficulties in elucidating the evolutionary history of the octopods have arisen from problems in identifying informative morphological characters. Recent classifications have divided the largest group, the incirrate octopods, into five groups. These include the pelagic superfamily Argonautoidea and three gelatinous pelagic families (Vitreledonellidae, Bolitaenidae, Amphitretidae). All benthic incirrate octopods have been accommodated in the family Octopodidae, itself divided into four subfamilies, Octopodinae, Eledoninae, Bathypolypodinae and Graneledoninae, which are defined by the presence or absence of an ink sac, and uniserial or biserial sucker arrangements on the arms. We used relaxed clock models in a Bayesian framework and maximum likelihood methods to analyse three nuclear and four mitochondrial genes of representatives from each of the previous subfamilies. Strong evidence indicates that the family Octopodidae is paraphyletic and contains the gelatinous pelagic families. The subfamilies of Octopodidae recognised in earlier works do not reflect evolutionary history. The following clades were supported in all analyses: (1) Eledone/Aphrodoctopus, (2) Callistoctopus/Grimpella/Macroctopus/Scaeurgus, (3) Abdopus/Ameloctopus/Amphioctopus/Cistopus/Hapalochlaena/Octopus, (4) Enteroctopus/Muusoctopus/Vulcanoctopus, (5) Vitreledonella/Japetella, (6) Southern Ocean endemic and deep-sea taxa with uniserial suckers. These clades form the basis for a suite of taxa assigned family taxonomic rank: Amphitretidae, Bathypolypodidae, Eledonidae, Enteroctopodidae, Megaleledonidae and Octopodidae sensu nov. They are placed within the superfamily Octopodoidea.
Related Topics (5)
Performance Metrics
| Year | Papers |
|---|---|
| 2014 | 1 |
| 2005 | 1 |