‘Adorable’ octopus found in Pacific

MONTEREY BAY – An unclassified octopus that lives deep in the Pacific Ocean is so cute, US scientists want to name it “adorabilis.”

Some say it looks like a ghost from the Pac-Man video game, but it is anything but spooky and its discoverers may call it Opisthoteuthis adorabilis.

The researchers in California are looking for an appropriate Latin species designation for the mysterious cephalopod and, while little is known about it, few would deny that the specimens found so far are adorable.

Stephanie Bush of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute said after a year of study, she is preparing to submit a report to a scientific review that would confer a name on the species, which is a form of flapjack octopus.

“New species are discovered every year, not all of them get described, it can take a lot of time, years sometimes,” she said.

Some other species have been deemed adorable, such as Lophornis adorabilis, the white-crested coquette hummingbird.

“I don’t see any obvious reason why it would be inappropriate – it’s easy to pronounce and popular with the public,” Dr Bush said.

Aside from how the octopus looks, scientists do not know much more about the new species.

It lives in deep cold waters and the 12 individuals that have been studied so far have all been female.

“They spend most of their time on the bottom, sitting on the sediment, but they need to move around to find food and mates,” Dr Bush said.

Dr Bush is trying to incubate a batch of octopus eggs in her laboratory, but they develop very slowly because of the cold temperature of the deep ocean and may not hatch for two or three years.

Anyone charmed enough by the cute creature to want to see one in the wild would have to dive in the Pacific to between 200 and 600 metres to where the water is only 6°C.