January 27th, 2010 
So here I was, just minding my own business under this rock-type thing and some freakish looking thing from Poseidon-knows-where started kicking up dirt and messing with me!
From NeptuneCanada’s youtube account:
“2-September-2009: As ROPOS touches down on the sediment next to the drillhead, an octopus watches warily from its lair at Ocean Drilling Platform 2016B (2660m below sea level). When ROPOS grasps an anemone-festooned rope, the startled animal shrinks into a pink ball. A short while later, as ROPOS prepares to fasten the rope to the drillhead, the octopus first lurks in the sediment, then flaps its web and flies off into the darkness.”
Looks like a Vulcanoctopus almost, I wonder if one our octopus experts out there can confirm… Thanks to Neptune Canada and other organizations out there for making these little moments available for us to see!
Extreme niftiness! I would have gone for an off-the-cuff ID of Benthoctopus, but I am not really a deep-sea octopod expert.
Actually the 2 genera are *almost* synonymized. See Strugnell et al. 2009 Zootaxa 2096: 442–459. or email for the paper if you are interested.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by RJS, Oceana and Susana E., MySalem. MySalem said: This pretty cool: RT @therightblue Octopus Just Trying to Catch Some Zzz’s | Deep Sea News http://bit.ly/aSSYon [...]
That’s really interesting! Thx for the ref. But even if Vulcanoctopus is a subset of Benthoctopus, I’d still guess this particular octopus is more likely a different, “non-Vulcanoctopus” Benthoctopus. Supposedly Vulcanoctopus is a vent endemic… is Platform 2016B near a vent?
Platform 2016B is out in the North Sea, off the coast of Norway. Not vents, but likely very close to some seeps. Its probably a type of Benthoctopus like you said.