“In the late 1960s, Aradio Rodaniche was diving off the coast of Nicaragua when he made the discovery that has tantalised cephalopod biologists ever since.

[…]

The discovery of an apparently social species was so implausible that few believed it and Rodaniche’s story passed into legend. He published a short account of the species in 1991, but hardly anyone had seen the animal and no one could confirm the report”

That takes account of (at least) a few decades.

I also think the issue isn’t coming up with a name but scientifically describing it. That (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_description) can take time.

Finally, the group of people interested in having a species description may not be very large; and the group willing and able to create one even smaller. Nowadays the money in biology is in biochemistry.

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gucci-on-fleek 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> Finally, the group of people interested in having a species description may not be very large; and the group willing and able to create one even smaller.

Perhaps, but the caption on the picture in the article [0] says that it was taken at "an aquarium at the California Academy of Sciences", which sounds like the kind of place where octopus scientists hang out. And the article cited in Wikipedia [1] has quite a few authors, which makes me think that there's something more complicated going on here.

[0]: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Larger_Pacific_Strip...

[1]: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0134152

	▲	arjie 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Huh interesting. I, like most San Franciscans, know the Cal Academy as primarily a public aquarium with a smaller research arm associated with it. I didn’t know they do the kind of research that leads to species description. Would have expected them to be downstream of that.