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 The milky white creature, nicknamed "Casper the Friendly Ghost" by
Twitter users, was caught on cameras mounted on the craft as it
explored the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 4,290 meters, or about
2-1/2 miles, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
said.
Describing the animal as an incirrate octopod, one of two main
groupings of octopods, NOAA said it was the first time an incirrate
was spotted so deep in the ocean.
"This animal was particularly unusual because it lacked the pigment
cells, called chromatophores, typical of most cephalopods, and it
did not seem very muscular," said Michael Vecchione, a research
zoologist at NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service. Cephalopods
belong to a biological class that includes octopuses, squid and
cuttlefish.
 "The deep sea is so poorly known that finding new or unexpected
things happens fairly often," Vecchione said in an email, adding
that he was excited by the images. "What is unusual is the
opportunity to explore this deep."
The octopod "almost certainly" was one of a species never previously
described by scientists, and it may well belong to a genus that has
yet to be identified, wrote Vecchione, who is affiliated with the
Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
To be certain, he said in the email, scientists would need at least
one specimen, and preferably several of them.
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NOAA has posted a video on the website showing a pale, rounded form
with expressionless eyes and languid tentacles resting on the ocean
floor. Its appearance led some Twitter users to say it resembled the
cartoon character Casper the Friendly Ghost.
Last week's discovery came during the first dive of the 2016 season
from the Okeanos Explorer, a ship operated by NOAA that explores
little-known parts of the oceans.
The remotely operated underwater vehicle Deep Discoverer came across
the octopod near Necker Island, or Mokumanamana, on the northwestern
end of the Hawaiian Archipelago.
(Editing by Tom Brown and Matthew Lewis)
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