A groundbreaking discovery has been made by scientists, as they identified a new tiny octopus species on the seabed of the Galápagos Islands at a depth of 1,800 meters.

According to Time, the tiny creature was actually first found in 2015, but it was only officially named on Monday (25/5) as “Microeledone galapagensis” in a paper published in the scientific journal Zootaxa.

The Microeledone galapagensis: the tiny blue octopus discovered nearly 2 km beneath the Galápagos Islands, a completely new species pic.twitter.com/nPKk7DbhTQ

Microeledone galapagensis: the tiny blue octopus discovered nearly 2km beneath the Galapagos Islands, a completely new species pic.twitter.com/06KKzuoE6S

— Sinaptica (@wwwsinaptica) May 26, 2026

The octopus stands out from others because it is blue — a color extremely rare in nature — and it lacks an ink sac, something most people associate with octopuses.

The discovery of Microeledone galapagensis surprised experts, as its related species are usually much larger and are mostly found in the icy waters around Antarctica.

The Galápagos Islands are home to many strange and wonderful creatures, and this octopus is no exception.

How was the octopus discovered by scientists?

In 2015, a team of scientists conducted research aboard a submersible named Nautilus at a depth of about 1,830 meters. The remotely operated camera scanned the ocean floor until it detected a blue glow, focused, and observed a tiny octopus-like creature alone in the water.

A scientist said: “It’s tiny! It’s blue!” and immediately collected it for study. It was placed in a bucket of cold seawater and, as is standard practice in collection missions, was later preserved in 4% formalin for 24 hours. After that, it was transferred into a 95% ethanol solution for storage and cataloguing at the Charles Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz Island in the Galápagos.

It remained there, unexamined, until 2017, when researchers reviewing photos of the station’s samples realized it was something different and contacted octopus specialist Janet Voight, emeritus curator of invertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago and lead author of the Zootaxa publication.

“They were trying to determine what species it belonged to and contacted me. I looked at the photos and saw it and thought: ‘Wow, this is completely distinct,’” she said.

It was so unusual that Voight requested the sample be sent to her so she could examine its internal organs, not with a scalpel and microscope, but with a CT scanner recently installed at the Field Museum. From photos alone, the octopus appeared to belong to the genus Thaumeledone, a group of small, stocky deep-sea octopuses found in the Southern Hemisphere. However, this was only a hypothesis, and Voight wanted to examine the specimen directly to confirm it.

Similarities and differences with the genus Thaumeledone

It took five years for the research station to agree to send the specimen to Chicago, and only in 2022 did Voight finally scan it.

Initially, there were signs it might belong to Thaumeledone: it had a zigzag pattern of suckers on its arms, a defining trait of the genus, and it lacked an ink sac, which makes sense in the deep sea where ink clouds are ineffective.

However, there were also major differences. First, the funnel organ: octopuses move by drawing water into a funnel and expelling it like a jet. In Thaumeledone, this contains a small gland, but in this specimen the gland was unusually large, wrapping around the entire inside of the funnel.

Then there was texture. Thaumeledone octopuses have small bumps (papillae), but this octopus was smooth. There was also the issue of its teeth: Thaumeledone typically has seven teeth, but this specimen had only one large one.

Finally, color: typical Thaumeledone is brown. This one appeared blue under underwater lighting, but was actually white or translucent on top and purple underneath.

Ultimately, it was confirmed that it does not belong to Thaumeledone and represents a completely new octopus species.

“It is the first deep-sea octopus from the eastern equatorial Pacific. It represents everything that exists in the deep sea that we don’t even know exists. We talk about deep-sea mining, but we don’t know what is there and we are putting it all at risk. There are extraordinary things down there,” she emphasized.