Octopus maya, known colloquially as the Mexican four-eyed octopus, is a shallow water octopus that can be found in the tropical Western Atlantic Ocean. It is common to sea grass prairies and coral formations. The species was initially discovered in an octopus fishery in Campeche Mexico, where its close external resemblance to Octopus vulgaris led to its mistaken grouping with the other species. O. maya makes up 80% of octopus catch in the ...
Yucatán Peninsula, while O. vulgaris makes up the remaining 20%.Octopus maya can be identified by its large, double-ringed ocellus (a false eye spot) and large egg size (averaging 17 mm or 0.67 in). The mantle is muscular, large, and oval in shape. There is some variation in the definite shape of the posterior end of the mantle, but all are fairly narrow and meet the head at a characteristically narrow neck. Females grow to be larger than males, weighing in at 1,024 g (36 oz) with mantles measuring 124 millimetres (4.9 in). Males grow to be about 484 g (17.1 oz) with mantles 91 g (3.2 oz) long. They are usually dark brown in color but may turn red when agitated. They are also able to mimic the color of the sand on the seafloor. The ocellus is a dark red brown and found directly beneath the eye between the second and third arm. It has been found in depths between 3 and 25 m (10 and 82 ft) along the continental shelf of the Yucatán Peninsula.
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