354 Bidletin Vanderbilt Marine Mtiseum, Vol. VII 



Octopus (Octopus) cyanea Gray 



Plate 149 

 Type : Gray's type is a male specimen, from the coasts of New 

 Holland (Australia) , deposited in the British Museum of Natural 

 History. 



Distribution : This strikingly coloured littoral octopus has a 

 wide distribution, having been recorded from the Red Sea (Rup- 

 pell, Wulker) ; Suakim (Hoyle) ; Djeddah (Joubin) ; Zanzibar, 

 Seychelles, Mauritius (Hoyle) ; Australia (Gray, Brazier) ; Ak- 

 yab, Burma (Massy) ; Madras (Robson) ; Coetivy Atoll, Indian 

 Ocean (Robson) ; Ceylon (Ortman) ; Amboina (Joubin) ; Rima- 

 tara. Austral Isles, Buka and Stewart Isles, Solomon Isles 

 (Wulker) ; Rotuma and Fiji (Hoyle) ; Christmas Island (Rob- 

 son) ; and Hawaiian Islands: Honolulu Reefs, Oahu and Hilo 

 (Hoyle, Berry, Robson, Boone). 



Material examined : One female, taken in 2 fathoms, at Hilo, 

 Hawaii, December 11, 1929, by the "Ara." 



Technical description: This octopus has been very thor- 

 oughly described by a number of writers. Reference is especially 

 made here to the recent very thorough discussion of Octopus 

 cyanea, presented by Mr. Robson (1929, p. 94, figs. 21-23), based 

 upon an extensive series of specimens from widely separated locali- 

 ties and to that of the late Dr. W. E. Hoyle (1885, p. 227; ibid, 

 1886, p. 85, pi. 6, colour), who first described Hawaiian specimens 

 of 0. cyanea under the name of 0. marmoratus, this species name 

 having reference to the colour pattern of ochreous red maculated 

 with purple and series of intercotyledonary colour bands down the 

 surface of the arms of this octopus. Reference is also made to the 

 excellent report of Dr. S. Stillman Berry (1909, p. 418, also 1914, 

 p. 291, pis. 45 and 46, figs. 6-11) on the "Albatross" collection of 

 "Cephalopoda of the Hawaiian Islands." 



The "Ara" specimen is a female, which in the dead and some- 

 what shrunken state, has a web diameter of 20 centimeters. The 

 body is rounded pyrif orm with a smallish head ; the mantle aper- 

 ture is of medium width; the web is widest laterally, with the 

 dorsal sector deeper than the ventral ; the arms, of which the left 

 one is bitten off and another arm partly regenerated, are long. 



