Wednesday, the AP reported that the world's first moving images of a giant squid living in its natural habitat have been captured by a team of scientists more than half a mile below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
The three-meter (nine-foot) invertebrate was filmed from a manned submersible during one of 100 dives in the Pacific last summer in a joint expedition by Japanese public broadcaster NHK, Discovery Channel and Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science.
NHK released photographs of the giant squid this week ahead of Sunday's show about the encounter. The footage will also be part of a Discovery Channel show, Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real, which will air Jan. 27 as the season finale of Curiosity.
The squid was missing its characteristic two longest tentacles – and scientists don’t know why. Marine biologists said if that pair of tentacles had been intact, the creature would probably have measured up to 23 feet long.
Although small by giant squid standards, the largest ever caught measured 59 feet, the video footage released this week was the first time a live giant squid had been caught on video deep in the ocean.
You can watch the video footage of the giant squid to your left.
The reason why scientists have never been able to catch a living giant squid on camera before is that squids are very solitary creatures, shying away from any kind of light. That's why they live so deep in the ocean, and the only ones ever caught in shallower water or on the beach were dead.
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Emily Sutherlin is also the Pregnancy Examiner, Celebrity Examiner and Women’s Issues Examiner.
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