Scientists Find a Tiny New Octopus Species in the Deep Ocean Near the Galápagos

A small blue octopus, no bigger than the palm of a hand, was discovered in the deep waters around Darwin Island in the Galápagos. Scientists have officially named it Microeledone galapagensis. The octopus was collected in 2015 from nearly a mile and a half below the surface during an underwater expedition. A paper describing the discovery was published in the scientific journal Zootaxa.

Janet Voight, a researcher at the Field Museum in Chicago who specializes in sea creatures without backbones, led the work. This is the first time in her 40-year career that she has officially identified a completely new octopus species. The octopus they found was a mature female. It was preserved in a lab at the Charles Darwin Research Station in the Galápagos and then sent to Chicago for detailed examination.

What This Discovery Changes

The new octopus has forced scientists to rethink how they categorize a whole family of octopuses called Megaleledonidae. Until now, scientists thought all octopuses in this family were large and lived only in the cold waters around Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Finding a small, tropical octopus that belongs to this family means scientists have to expand their understanding of where these creatures live and what they look like.

Salome Buglass, a marine scientist at UCLA who helped write the formal description, explained that this is a common challenge in deep-sea research. As submarines and underwater robots get better and can reach deeper parts of the ocean, scientists keep finding creatures that don't fit the old rules.

How Scientists Found It

The octopus was collected using standard tools during a deep-sea research expedition. Darwin Island sits at the northern edge of the Galápagos archipelago, where the seafloor drops steeply into very deep waters. Several ocean currents meet around the island, creating different water environments at different depths.

After the octopus was caught, scientists preserved it using tried-and-tested methods to keep the body intact for study. It was stored at the Charles Darwin Research Station before being sent to Chicago. The whole process — from collection to final identification — took eleven years, which shows how careful and slow the work of identifying new species can be.

Why Deep-Sea Discoveries Matter

This discovery fits a pattern we've seen many times before. Whenever underwater technology improves, scientists find species that challenge what we thought we knew. Since the 1990s, better deep-sea exploration tools have sped up the discovery of new species across many types of sea life.

The genus Microeledone has already been revised several times as scientists have collected more specimens from the deep ocean. This new octopus adds to evidence that deep tropical waters are home to far more octopus species than scientists have found so far. Most research has focused on colder, temperate waters, where research facilities and funding have historically been more available.

How Scientists Told This Was a New Species

What makes this octopus different from its relatives is mainly its small size compared to other octopuses in its family. But identifying a new species involves much more detail than just size.

Octopus experts look at many features: the proportions of the arms, the arrangement of the suckers, the reproductive organs, and even patterns in the skin. The way the octopus was preserved in the lab was good enough for scientists to examine all these features and confirm it was genuinely a new species. This meets the strict requirements for officially naming a new species.

A Remote Island, Unique Life Forms

Darwin Island was named after Charles Darwin, whose observations in the Galápagos helped shape how we understand evolution. The island is extremely isolated and has steep underwater cliffs. This creates distinct habitats at different depths that support species found nowhere else in the world.

The octopus was found at a depth of 1,773 meters — roughly a mile down. At this depth, the pressure, temperature, and darkness are all very different from shallower water. Octopuses that live at these depths often have special physical and behavioral adaptations that suit their extreme environment.

The discovery highlights why it matters for scientists to preserve specimens carefully and store them properly, even in remote locations. It also shows how modern tools — including new genetic techniques added to traditional methods of examining physical features — keep revealing forms of ocean life we didn't know existed in areas we thought we understood well.

As deep-sea robots and submarines become cheaper and more common, and as more research teams work to systematically collect specimens, scientists expect to find many more octopuses and other sea creatures that will reshape our understanding of ocean biodiversity and how species are related to one another.