Tiny Deep-Sea Octopus Upends Classification of Entire Family

A palm-sized blue octopus found near the Galápagos in 2015 has been formally named Microeledone galapagensis. The species overturned what scientists thought defined Megaleledonidae—a family long assumed to contain only large octopuses in the Southern Ocean. Published in Zootaxa, the discovery expands the family's range into tropical deep waters and challenges the size assumptions researchers held about the group.