\n\t\t\t\t\t\tA strange octopus species found on the ocean floor can comfortably fit in the palm of your hand.The tiny bright-blue octopus, named Microeledone galapagensis, is a golf ball-sized creature that was found living nearly 5,800 feet deep near the Galapagos Islands. It was first spotted during a 2015 deep-sea expedition conducted aboard the “Nautilus,” according to officials with the Charles Darwin Foundation, which recently presented its findings in a new paper in the journal “Zootaxa.” “It’s adorable,” researchers can be heard saying upon finding the creature.Because researchers only had a single specimen, they used advanced CT scans rather than dissecting it – combining multiple scans to create a 3D model.After years of research, scientists at the Field Museum of Chicago came to the conclusion that it was a never-before-seen species of octopus. \u201cRight away, I knew it was something really special,\u201d said octopus expert Janet Voight, curator emerita of invertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago and the lead author of the study describing the new species. \u201cI\u2019d never seen anything like it.\u201d Voight said researchers were able to see fine details of its internal organs, including its mouth, that helped provide the information needed to declare it a new species.She said it was the first new octopus she’s seen in her 40 years studying the creatures. But she’s not surprised it was found in the deep sea.\u201cThese are little octopuses that live in the deep sea, and hardly anybody on Earth has ever gotten to see them. I just feel lucky that I got to work with them,\u201d said Voight. \u201cIf you took all the land on Earth and pieced it together, you would not cover the Pacific Ocean. The oceans are so big, and there\u2019s so much left to explore.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\tSANTA CRUZ, Gal\u00e1pagos Province \u2014 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
A strange octopus species found on the ocean floor can comfortably fit in the palm of your hand.<\/p>\n
The tiny bright-blue octopus, named Microeledone galapagensis, is a golf ball-sized creature that was found living nearly 5,800 feet deep near the Galapagos Islands. <\/p>\n
It was first spotted during a 2015 deep-sea expedition conducted aboard the “Nautilus,” according to officials with the Charles Darwin Foundation<\/a>, which recently presented its findings in a new paper in the journal “Zootaxa<\/a>.” <\/p>\n “It’s adorable,” researchers can be heard saying upon finding the creature.<\/p>\n Because researchers only had a single specimen, they used advanced CT scans rather than dissecting it – combining multiple scans to create a 3D model.<\/p>\n After years of research, scientists at the Field Museum of Chicago came to the conclusion that it was a never-before-seen species of octopus. <\/p>\n \u201cRight away, I knew it was something really special,\u201d said octopus expert Janet Voight, curator emerita of invertebrates at the Field Museum in Chicago and the lead author of the study describing the new species. \u201cI\u2019d never seen anything like it.\u201d <\/p>\n Voight said researchers were able to see fine details of its internal organs, including its mouth, that helped provide the information needed to declare it a new species.<\/p>\n She said it was the first new octopus she’s seen in her 40 years studying the creatures. But she’s not surprised it was found in the deep sea.<\/p>\n \u201cThese are little octopuses that live in the deep sea, and hardly anybody on Earth has ever gotten to see them. I just feel lucky that I got to work with them,\u201d said Voight. \u201cIf you took all the land on Earth and pieced it together, you would not cover the Pacific Ocean. The oceans are so big, and there\u2019s so much left to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A strange octopus species found on the ocean floor can comfortably fit in the palm of your hand.The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[292107,292104,292105,152771,25283,291372,79,291375,292106,201,273932],"class_list":["post-669015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-menu-subscribe","tag-microeledone-galapagensis","tag-new-octopus-species","tag-nowcast","tag-page","tag-privacy-notice-term","tag-science","tag-use-nextfre","tag-weekday-news","tag-wildlife","tag-wjcl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}