Paris: Scientists have described a Blue Galapagos octopus found nearly 1,800 metres below the ocean surface near Darwin Island in the Galápagos.
A Charles Darwin Foundation team first spotted the golf ball-sized octopus from a submersible in 2015. Footage captured one scientist saying, “He’s tiny! It’s blue!”
Researchers named the species Microeledone galapagensis. Janet Voight, associate curator of invertebrate zoology at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, helped identify it.
Voight told AFP that the team avoided cutting open the only specimen. The Field Museum used CT scans to build a 3D model and examine its internal anatomy.
Octopus expert Janet Voight, curator at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, identified the specimen as a new species. “Right away, I knew it was something really special,” Voight said.
The initial examination relied on photos taken before the preserved body arrived. “When it arrived, I was like ‘Oh! My goodness! It’s beautiful,” Voight told AFP.
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The species has short arms, a single row of suckers, and smooth skin on its back. Voight said its pale blue back and deep purple underside may help shield it from predators when prey emits light.
Voight noted that new discoveries of octopus species remain relatively common in poorly explored deep-sea areas.
“If you took all the land on Earth and pieced it together, you would not cover the Pacific Ocean,” she said. Voight’s research was published on Monday in the journal Zootaxa.
The discovery adds to evidence that scientists still know little about deep-ocean life. Voight noted that large parts of the Pacific Ocean floor remain unexplored.
