Impressive glass octopus sighted in the Australian Pacific Ocean
The curious specimen was captured by a team of biologists who were on an expedition more than 5,100 kilometers from Sydney, at the height of the Phoenix Islands.
With the help of a marine robot, a group of marine biologists from Boston University and the Woods Hole oceanographic institution managed to capture a glass octopus swimming in the depths of the Central Pacific Ocean.
Like other glass creatures, such as glass frogs and certain variants of comb jellyfish, glass octopuses are also completely transparent, except for their cylindrical eyes, optic nerve, and digestive tract which are opaque.
The transparent cephalopod was discovered on a 34-day expedition aboard a research vessel led by the Schmidt Ocean Institute.
With 21 dives of the SuBastian underwater robot, the high-resolution seabed mapping of more than 30,000 square kilometers around the archipelago was completed. Images were taken of 6 seamounts and a whale shark.
The ocean holds wonders and promises that we don’t even imagine.
