By Avni Trivedi, CNN
(CNN) — Scientists have announced the discovery of a previously unidentified species of octopus found in the Galápagos Islands — and it’s sure to turn heads. The creature, which sports blue flesh and large eyes, can fit between the bottom of your palm and the first knuckle of your middle finger.
In 2015, a remotely operated underwater robot captured the little, blue animal moving around in the sediment about 5,800 feet (1,773 meters) beneath the surface.
From the ship above, one crew member compared the creature to a plush toy.
“Is that a cute little guy, or what?” said another crew member, who can be heard in video footage documenting the researchers’ discovery.
Paperwork and logistics delayed the research process for the animal — a female cephalopod — though a crew aboard the E/V Nautilus discovered it more than a decade ago in collaboration with the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park Directorate. The octopus didn’t arrive at the Field Museum in Chicago until 2022.
In a study published May 24 in the journal Zootaxa, Janet Voight, curator emerita of invertebrates at the Field Museum, identified the octopus as a previously unknown species: Microeledone galapagensis.
Voight was hesitant to do much dissection when she began studying the tiny animal.
The octopus had been preserved in formaldehyde, which halts decomposition. However, because the specimen had large eggs in its ovaries, the formaldehyde could not fully penetrate the entire animal, leaving its flesh relatively delicate.
“If you make the wrong cut or tear something, it’s gone forever,” Voight said. “The cost of going to sea is just astronomical, and the chances of finding another one and successfully collecting it are just not high.”
After consulting with other experts, she decided to use the Field Museum’s newly acquired CT scanner to get a better look into the animal’s anatomy while keeping the specimen intact.
Thousands of X-rayed images were digitally compiled to create a 3D model that allowed Voight to determine where the animal fits in the phylogenetic tree.
Not your average octopus
Octopuses are enchanting creatures, said Jim Barry, senior scientist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, who was not involved with the study.
“They’re so different than most other organisms,” Barry said. “The nervous system of octopuses are more complex than any invertebrate animal on earth, so maybe that’s why they’re able to perform in ways or have behaviors that are so captivating for us.”
There are more than 300 species of varying size, shape and color.
“When you think about octopus, you think of an animal with long arms,” Voight said. “Not this guy.”
Voight identified the octopus as a member of the Microeledone genus, which only has one other species: Microeledone mangoldi. They both come from the octopus family Megaleledonidae. M. mangoldi was first described in 2004 after its discovery in the southwest Pacific Ocean near New Caledonia, an island east of Australia.
M. galapagensis shares many characteristics with its family member such as smooth skin; large funnel organs; lack of pigment in the mantle area, which is the large sac behind the head; and similar arm sucker and gill lamellae counts. Gill lamellae are thin plates of tissue inside the gills that allow organisms to take in more oxygen.