Paroctopus is a small genus of octopuses from the family Octopodidae.

Paroctopus are small-bodied; short mantled, pouch like octopuses with short, stocky arms which are 2 or 3 times the length of the mantle.

Paroctopus lays small to medium-sized eggs which are on very short stalks and are attached singly in small clusters within the empty shells of gastropods and bivalves.

They are uniformly coloured with little variation in pattern and they lack a patch and groove system.

[3] The species of Paroctopus are distributed in the northeastern Pacific Ocean off Mexico and the Gulf of California and in the western Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.