{"id":1638,"date":"2026-06-13T08:24:54","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/golf-ball-sized-adorable-tiny-blue-octopus-discovered-in-the-galapagos\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T08:24:56","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T07:24:56","slug":"golf-ball-sized-adorable-tiny-blue-octopus-discovered-in-the-galapagos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/golf-ball-sized-adorable-tiny-blue-octopus-discovered-in-the-galapagos\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf Ball-Sized: Adorable Tiny Blue Octopus Discovered in the Gal\u00e1pagos"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><\/figure>\n<p><strong>During a ten-day expedition in 2015, a remotely operated submersible captured footage of a tiny blue octopus near a submarine volcano off Darwin Island. Recent analyses have shown that it represents a completely new species.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>A Unique Specimen<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Back then, the teams aboard the E\/V Nautilus managed to collect a female specimen and recorded two other individuals, living at a depth of 1,773 meters. While cephalopod expert Janet Voight, based in Chicago, quickly suspected that it was an undiscovered species, confirmation based solely on still images was not possible.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">In animal societies, power does not always flow from the strongest to the weakest<\/span><\/section>\n<p>\u201c<em>It was morphologically similar to a genus of octopuses seen from Antarctica to Uruguay, yet its coloration set it apart<\/em>,\u201d explains the scientist. \u201c<em>Shipping the specimen out of the Gal\u00e1pagos National Park was no easy task, given the host of protective measures in place to safeguard its unique biodiversity<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Once this single specimen arrived at her Chicago laboratory, Voight concluded that computed tomography, a technique that allows three-dimensional imaging of an organism\u2019s internal structures without causing damage, was essential.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>High-resolution scans of this octopus revealed a wealth of information about its organic anatomy, all without the need for the heavy-metal contrast agents typically used<\/em>,\u201d notes Alexander Ziegler, a researcher at the University of Bonn and the lead author of the new study, published in the journal <em>Zootaxa<\/em>.<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">The garden lamps disrupt glow-worms at the most vulnerable moment of their life<\/span><\/section>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div class=\"cssc-content-video-wrapper\"><iframe title=\"Tiny Blue Octopus Discovered In Galapagos Islands Is A New Species\" width=\"680\" height=\"383\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/3XoWRbmMTG8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Microeledone galapagensis<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Named Microeledone galapagensis, in reference to where it was discovered, the new species measures only a few centimeters in length.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to its stout frame and compact proportions, traits common to deep-sea cephalopods, it bears eyes that are unusually well-developed, likely an adaptation to low-light conditions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Few people realize that the Pacific Ocean covers more surface area than all of the Earth\u2019s landmasses combined<\/em>,\u201d notes Voight. \u201c<em>This is the second member of this genus, previously known only from a single specimen collected in New Caledonia<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<section class=\"incontent-related\"><span class=\"incontent-related__title\">Read also<\/span> <span class=\"incontent-related__desc\">Face-to-face at 40 meters depth: divers film an unprecedented great white shark in the Mediterranean<\/span><\/section>\n<p>Last year, researchers described a case of \u201ctoxic love\u201d among octopuses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174,1708,1709,1701,1710,1707,1245,854],"class_list":["post-1638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-adorable","tag-ballsized","tag-blue","tag-discovered","tag-galapagos","tag-golf","tag-octopus","tag-tiny","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1638"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1638\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.farmersforum.ie\/trends\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}