The common octopus of the Mexican Pacific, in holes and under boulders, out and hunting at dusk.
Mantle averaging about 22 cm, total length about 50 cm. A globular mantle with eight short tapering arms, light to dark brown, greenish and reddish with lighter markings, and no eyespot.
That absence is the separator from the two eastern Pacific octopus that carry a distinct eyespot below the eye.
Intertidal to a hundred and fifty-five metres, usually the top ten, on boulders, reef, sand and mud.
Two flags on this entry. Its documented range is the Gulf of California south to Oaxaca, and the 2020 paper reporting an eyespot-bearing octopus new to the Revillagigedo ecoregion identified it as the Galapagos octopus, so the record on this page probably belongs to that species. And “Mexican four-eyed octopus” is not a name any source uses; the published names are Hubbs’ octopus and pulpo verde. Both need Simon’s decision.
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.
