Over 4 miles down in the Indian ocean, a species of octopus has been captured on camera which is said to be the deepest sighting of the sea creature to date. 'Dumbo Octopus', a species of deep-sea umbrella octopuses named for their fins which resemble the ears of Disney's cartoon elephant Dumbo, have been spotted at almost 4.3 miles in the sea using lander machines, according to a report in CNN.
Marine ecologist Alan Jamieson, who led the team that made the discovery, revealed that they had made over 100 dives and were aware of the sea creatures they would find on the sea bed. However, they were surprised to see the Dumbo Octopus species. He told CNN, "as usual, we filmed much of the same stuff, but then suddenly in the middle of a dive about close to 6,000 meters this Dumbo octopus just flies by the camera."
"Then two days later, we're doing it slightly deeper, at 7,000 meters, and the camera's only on the seafloor for four minutes. And this thing just comes out of the darkness, which just crawled up to the cameras -- another Dumbo octopus," Jamieson, CEO of deep-sea exploration company Armatus Oceanic, told CNN.
Other than 'Dumbo Octopus', the researchers spotted 17 and 14 inches long animals that were 3.6 to 4.3 miles deep in the ocean.
Jamieson said, "It shows that are still surprises to be made with big animals. Quite often you hear about new species and they tend to be tiny worms and small crustaceans. This is a great big octopus." He also added that the discovery will challenge people's perceptions of deep sea creatures. He said, "I like the fact that it challenges people's perceptions about what deep sea animals look like."
"This is just a cute little octopus doing what octopuses do. There's nothing particularly weird about it. So hopefully, people might feel a greater attachment to the really deep waters as opposed to the scary, horrible, weird environment that it's made out to be," he added.
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