A mysterious little blue octopus discovered nearly 6,000 feet beneath the waters of the Galápagos Islands has officially been identified as a brand-new species. About the size of a golf ball, the tiny creature, now named Microeledone galapagensis, stunned researchers during a deep-sea expedition when it suddenly appeared on camera, crawling across the ocean floor near an underwater mountain.
The team collected a specimen and filmed two others before bringing dozens of deep-sea finds back to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The octopus was later examined at Chicago’s Field Museum, where micro CT scans revealed fine details of its internal organs, giving scientists everything they needed to confirm it as a species entirely new to science.
🎥 Charles Darwin Foundation
