A large temperate octopus with white spots over the arms and body, out on open ground at night.
Total length to about two metres and 12 kg, with an arm span over three; the mantle length alone is not given in the sources. Robust, orange-brown to dark purple-grey, with the upper arms four to six times the mantle length and numerous small iridescent white spots on the web and arms but not on the mantle.
Those white spots separate it from the gloomy octopus.
Nought to five hundred and fifty metres on soft sediment and rubble. Unlike the gloomy octopus it uses temporary shelters rather than a fixed den, marked by middens of shell and bone. It is nocturnal and a major predator of rock lobster.
Ratings are per location: 1 means found on most dives that look for it, 5 means a handful of records. Where enough dives have been logged the figure is calculated from them; otherwise it is an editorial estimate, and says so. We publish habitat and destination, not the dive site.
