Food to go: prey on the web of Octopus maya reveals its diet

During an experiment of Octopus maya fishing with baited lines during 2012 and 2013 off Lerma, Campeche, Mexico, 307 octopuses (18.3% of all sampled) shown recently caught 424 prey items in their webs. Preys were composed of crustaceans, mollusks, teleost fish, and sipunculans representing at least 52 species. Most prey occurrences were single (73.29%), but up to five prey items were found in some octopus. Crustaceans were the most frequent and abundant prey accounting for 61%FO, 59%N, and 20%W. The most important single prey was the majoid crab Pitho anisodon with 24%FO and 22%N. Molluscans occurred in half of octopus and represented more than a third of all preys and most of preys' weight. They were mostly bivalves. Fishes did not reach 2% of prey share by any account. Prey numbers differed significantly by year. O. maya feed on small preys, crustaceans, and bivalves in the range of 5-50 mm and gastropod and fishes mostly 50-120 mm in length. Size of prey was weakly or not related to octopus size, although only larger octopus feed on larger prey such strombid conchs. This work represents the first systematic study of octopus diet from direct observations on their recently taken prey. The advantages of this new method to study octopus food are discussed, as well as the feeding behavior associated to some prey.