2026 年 31 巻 1 号 p. 123-139
A species of octopus from the Red Sea is described based on two recently collected fisheries survey specimens and four historical specimens housed in the Natural History Museum, Vienna. The latter were collected between 1895 and 1927, including specimens from two of the Austrian Pola Expeditions of the late nineteenth century. This species is here identified as Pinnoctopus cuvierii (d’Orbigny, 1826) which is redescribed based on morphological characters and comparison with the monotypic holotype of P. cuvierii, that of congeneric species P. lechenaultii (d’Orbigny, 1826) and, from the Mediterranean Sea, a voucher specimen of P. macropus (Risso, 1826). The distributions of P. cuvierii (an Indian Ocean species) and P. macropus are separated by the barrier between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, with no evidence of any distribution overlap after the opening of the Suez Canal. The first molecular reference sequences are provided for P. cuvierii including one nuclear and four mitochondrial genes. Phylogenetic analysis and comparison with other species in the same genus reveal that P. cuvierii is most closely related to the Indo-West Pacific species P. luteus (Sasaki, 1929) and relatively distantly related to P. macropus, which has closer affinities to the Atlantic species P. furvus (Gould, 1852).
