Paulina Sepa Egas, head researcher of the Charles Darwin Foundation's Marine Collections, holds a container containing a preserved Galapagos blue octopus (Microeledone galapagensis) in a laboratory in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, on September 2, 2026. The strange, golf-ball-sized specimen that dazzled the scientific community has returned to Galapagos Islands to rest at the Charles Darwin Research Station, a showcase of the planet's astonishing species. (Photo by Carlos ESPINOSA / AFP via Getty Images)