The discovery of a blue octopus about the size of a golf ball has delighted marine biologists and the public with its rarity – and its big-eyed cute factor.The octopus was found 5,800 feet deep in the eastern Pacific Ocean by a remotely operated submersible near the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.“He’s tiny! It's blue!” was the reaction of researchers monitoring the submersible.The never-before-seen cephalopod was discovered near Darwin Island during a deep-sea expedition in 2015. Its discovery was reported in the science journal Zootaxa May 26.The new species has been named Microeledone galapagensis, a reference to its island location.Can't see our graphics? Click here to reload the page.The octopus can easily fit in the palm of a person's hand, according to a news release. Its arms are short, and it has very few suckers.The submersible collected the octopus, preserved its body in alcohol and formalin and sent it to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago for study.“We only had the one specimen, so I didn’t want to take it apart,” said Janet Voight, curator emerita of invertebrates at the museum.Instead of dissecting the octopus, researchers used thousands of noninvasive X-ray computed tomography, or CT scans, to study it. The scans were used to make a three-dimensional model of the octopus, including its insides.The expedition that discovered the octopus was by the E/V Nautilus. The mission was a collaboration of the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park Directorate. CONTRIBUTING Julia GomezSOURCE USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; fieldmuseum.org