Rare ‘Dumbo’ Octopus Captured on Film at Depths of 5,500ft off Hawaii’s Coast

Halloween appears to have come early in the depths of the waves, as researchers discovered a rare “ghostly” octopus.

A team of ocean explorers spotted the rare ‘Dumbo’ octopus 1,682 meters (5,518 feet) below the surface, off the coast of Hawaii.

The crew of the Hercules remotely operated vehicle can be heard exclaiming as the impressive creature comes into view.

‘Oh, wow!’ one researcher said, while another joked that the octopus had “very, very flappy ears.”

The Dumbo octopus gets its name from its striking resemblance to the 1941 cartoon character Dumbo the elephant, with its two large ear-like fins protruding above its eyes.

In the video captured by the Ocean Exploration Trust, the octopus can be seen flapping its ‘ears’ to propel itself through the water.

As the images show, Dumbo octopuses also have neutral buoyancy, allowing them to float serenely through the pitch blackness of the deep sea.

While this creature may seem strange to some, many commenters on social media found the gentle animal to be more cute than creepy.

‘Amazing!’ wrote one excited commenter, adding that they wanted ‘a big stuffed animal of this adorable boy!’

“I could look at this octopus all day, what a beautiful thing,” said another, while one viewer added that the octopus was “shaped like a friend.”

Measuring about 2 feet long, the specimen in the film is quite large for a species that often measures no more than 8 to 12 inches long.

However, this is just a small sample compared to the largest Dumbo octopus ever found, which measured 5 feet 10 inches long and weighed almost 6 kg.

The most submerged of all octopuses, the Dumbo octopus, which lives at depths between 1,000 and 7,000 m, is rare and exceptionally adapted to the extreme conditions of life at the bottom of the ocean.

Using their strong fins and guiding themselves with their eight webbed limbs, these fascinating creatures can survive by eating any snails and worms they find on the ocean floor.

Having internal cartilage supporting their limbs, they are also well adapted to the immense pressures found at these depths.

At 1,500 m below the waves, the pressure is almost 150 times greater than on land, meaning that most marine animals simply cannot survive.

The crew of the Hercules remotely operated vehicle can be heard exclaiming as the impressive creature comes into view.

In the video captured by the Ocean Exploration Trust you can see the octopus flapping its ‘ears’ to propel itself through the water.

The deepest recorded sighting of a Dumbo octopus was at more than 23,000 feet (7 km) in the Java Trench, or more than 20 times the height of the Shard in London.

With animal life scattered across the vast oceans, Dumbo octopuses must also be prepared to go long periods of time without seeing other octopuses, making finding a potential mate quite a challenge.

To get around these difficulties, female Dumbos constantly have eggs at different stages of development, like cars passing through a production line, so they can be ready to mate and lay eggs when the opportunity arises.

Scientists also believe that male Dumbo octopuses store sperm in a special projection on one of their arms that they can hand to a female for storage until it is time to lay eggs.

‘Dumbo Octopus’ actually refers to a family of 17 different types of octopuses, however, there may still be more species of Dumbo Octopus to discover.

Last year, a team of German scientists used MRI and DNA testing to identify a new species of Dumbo octopus never before described by science.

At such extreme depths, previously undiscovered species are common, so there are still many more strange and eerie discoveries to be made.