At depths greater than five and a half kilometers, sunlight ceases to exist. Above the seafloor lies a thick column of water, and around it stretches a cold abyssal plain never before seen by human eyes.
And suddenly, in the light of the submersible, a small figure appears. Two fins resembling ears slowly rise and fall, carrying a rounded, translucent body above the sediment. After a while, a second octopus emerges. Then a third.
In a single dive lasting eight hours, the ocean shows researchers three deep-sea Dumbo octopuses at once—each of a different hue: from pink to purple and orange. One floats freely above the bottom, another spreads the webbing between its tentacles, and the third, as if forgetting the weightlessness of the abyss, decides to take a short walk along the seafloor.
First Encounter with the Unexplored Bottom
In late August 2026, the Ocean Exploration Trust organization published a video taken during the expedition NA181 — Exploration of Wake Island's Deep Sea. These are not just camera shots: they are the first images from an area where no known scientific vehicle has ever descended.
The expedition runs from 20 August to 18 September 2026 — a total of 31 days of research — aboard the research vessel E/V Nautilus with support from NOAA Ocean Exploration. Its goal is to study some of the most unknown deep-sea regions of the Pacific Ocean around Wake Atoll, one of the most isolated landmasses on Earth.
During one of the dives, the remotely operated vehicles Little Hercules and Atalanta explored an abyssal plain in international waters—an area outside the jurisdiction of even the United States, between the Marshall Islands and the exclusive economic zone of Wake Atoll.
The vehicles descended to a depth of more than 5800 meters — more than five and a half kilometers down. According to the Ocean Exploration Trust, no known deep-sea dive had been conducted here before. The researchers' cameras became humanity's first eyes in this part of the ocean, and what they saw was astonishing.
Why They Are Called Dumbo
Dumbo octopuses got their popular name thanks to two prominent fins on the sides of their bodies. When moving, they resemble the ears of the flying baby elephant from the Disney cartoon.
These animals belong to the family Grimpoteuthidae — part of the broader suborder of finned octopuses called Cirrata. Along their arms are not only suckers but also thin sensory structures called cirri — hair-like appendages that help octopuses explore their surroundings in total darkness.
They move in several ways: flapping their fins with a heartbeat rhythm, creating gentle waves with their bodies and webbing, or expelling water from their mantle cavity. Such unhurried, economical movement is not a whim of nature but a necessity. In the depths where food is scarce, every muscle contraction has an energy cost. Ordinary octopuses rely on jet propulsion, but Dumbo octopuses have chosen a different path—they fly through the abyss like parachutists in slow motion.
Unlike their shallow-water relatives, these octopuses spend their entire lives in a world without sunlight, adapted to seeing with eyes not designed to distinguish colors.
Three Encounters in Eight Hours
Encountering even a single Dumbo octopus in front of a camera is already a rare stroke of luck. These animals inhabit such great depths and such a vast territory that they are encountered by researchers less often than stars in the sky. But during one eight-hour dive, expedition NA181 encountered three at once.
In the footage, the animals differ in color: pink, purple, and orange shades are visible among them. However, this does not mean that scientists have discovered three new species. The color of deep-sea animals is a capricious thing. It depends on the animal's physiology, the condition of its tissues, the intensity and spectrum of the submersible's light, as well as the camera's settings and sensitivity.
The Ocean Exploration Trust describes the observed group as multi-species — that is, possibly belonging to different species within the genus Grimpoteuthis. However, the exact identification of each animal to the species level is not provided in the published material. In science, this means one thing: for now, it is more correct to speak of three representatives of the family Grimpoteuthidae rather than to announce the discovery of new species.
Particularly curious is the behavior of one octopus. It slowly descends to the bottom and, leaning on its arms, seems to begin walking along the seafloor—walking as one walks on land, but under six kilometers of water. This is not the first known case of such locomotion in finned octopuses, but seeing it in a completely unexplored area is a rare piece of evidence of how animals use the extreme space of the abyssal plain, adapting to its conditions in their own ways.
A Desert That Turned Out to Be Inhabited
From afar, the abyssal floor may seem like a lifeless desert. There are no kelp forests, sun-drenched coral reefs, huge schools of fish, or bright light.
The main source of food comes from above in the form of marine snow — slowly sinking particles of organic matter: dead planktonic organisms, feces, pieces of animal bodies, and mucus. Sometimes, when algal blooms or mass animal migrations occur in surface waters, larger remains fall to the bottom, briefly creating a true feast for the hungry deep-sea ecosystem — an event that can provide food for entire communities for months or years ahead.
Life here is sparsely distributed. Distances between animals can be enormous — kilometers of empty seabed, where only occasionally slow-feeding sea cucumbers and gastropods are encountered. Therefore, meeting three octopuses during a single dive is especially interesting — like encountering a rare natural phenomenon.
But it is too early to draw conclusions about a large population of Dumbo octopuses in this area. A single eight-hour observation is insufficient to determine population density, its permanence, or the boundaries of animal distribution. Moreover, the very randomness of this encounter shows how many secrets the depths hold.
For a long time, knowledge about deep-sea animals was based mainly on individual specimens raised by nets or found in museum collections. These creatures appeared to scientists as motionless samples, preserved in alcohol, devoid of life and movement. Submersibles changed everything. They allow us to see a living being in its own environment: how it moves, positions itself relative to the seabed, reacts to light and surrounding space, how it lives.
The ocean ceases to be a collection of dissected specimens. It becomes a living stage on which stories unfold that science has not yet read.
What has the ocean shown us today?
It showed a place where no known research submersible had descended before — a territory that remains under the rule of the unknown even on the map of the 21st century world.
It showed three creatures calmly living under six kilometers of water, unaware of the existence of human maps, cameras, and names.
They are not making discoveries or seeking encounters with humans. They simply continue their deep-sea life — slowly drifting in complete darkness, spreading their tentacles in search of rare food, and leaving barely visible traces on the bottom, where even traces are a rarity.
Life itself is a miracle. And every dive into the ocean is a new encounter with its unpredictability, beauty, and endless art of surprising.
