Blue golf-ball octopus found 1,773 meters deep

A new, golf ball–size species of blue octopus—Microeledone galapagensis—was discovered on a deep-sea mountain 1,773 meters below the surface off Darwin Island in the Galápagos. Scientists identified it after robotic sub footage, lab analysis using micro-CT sca

A tiny blue octopus—golf ball-size, blue as if it had been painted—was spotted on a deep-sea mountainside off the Galápagos Islands, and the moment it appeared on screen the reaction wasn’t clinical. On the video from a 10-day expedition, researchers chuckled and cooed over the find.

The discovery began in July 2015. when researchers aboard the E/V Nautilus launched the robotic sub Hercules just off the coast of Darwin Island. part of the Galápagos archipelago. The sub was working in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of about 1. 773 meters below the sea’s surface when it brought back a clear view of a small blue octopus clinging to the underwater mountainside.

Once specimens were collected for analysis back at the lab at the Charles Darwin Research Station. the team hit a familiar hurdle: they couldn’t match the animal to anything already known. They turned to octopus expert Janet Voight, curator emerita of invertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago. Voight said she knew “right away” that it was “something really special,” adding, “I’d never seen anything like it.”.

Voight is the lead author on a new paper describing the species, which was published in Zootaxa. Based on what the researchers saw after detailed imaging, they concluded the octopus was a new species now named Microeledone galapagensis.

To confirm it. the scientists examined internal organs using micro-CT scanning. a method that produces thousands of x-ray image slices through an object and can be assembled into a high-resolution virtual model. The scans helped point to differences in key traits—relatively few suckers on its arms. smooth skin. beak features. and the coloring around its organs and parts of the mantle—all lining up with the conclusion that it did not belong to a known species.

There was another detail the team couldn’t ignore. “This ‘cute little guy’ also had 13 eggs in its ovaries.” The presence of those 13 eggs added a sense of immediacy to the discovery: not just a specimen to catalog, but an animal in the middle of its own life cycle.

Co-author Salome Buglass. of the University of California of Los Angeles and formerly at the Charles Darwin Foundation. said the find is a reminder of how much remains unexplored in the deep ocean of the Galápagos. The islands—off the coast of Ecuador—are famous for the unique animals and plants that live there. from evolutionary standouts to Darwin’s finches. which Charles Darwin discovered during his 1830s survey of the area aboard the HMS Beagle.

The new octopus extends that story farther down, into a part of the ocean that still holds surprises.

And in that simple. astonished reaction on the Hercules video—“Is that a cute little guy or what. ” one team member said. followed by “Oh my goodness. that is adorable”—the discovery’s stakes are almost audible. Even today. with robotic subs and high-resolution scans. there are corners of the seafloor off the Galápagos where researchers can still stumble into the unknown.

Galápagos Islands deep-sea octopus Microeledone galapagensis Hercules robotic sub E/V Nautilus micro-CT scanning Zootaxa Charles Darwin Research Station Darwin Island Charles Darwin Foundation