Colossal squid caught on video for first time, seen swimming nearly 2,000 feet below ocean’s surface

The colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, was captured on video swimming in the deep sea for the first time since it was identified a century ago.

The footage was filmed on March 9 by an international team of scientists and crew on an expedition near the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, Schmidt Ocean Institute said in a news release.

The squid, scientifically named Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, was a juvenile at nearly one foot long, according to the release. It was at a depth of 1,968 feet when scientists and crew on board the institute’s research vessel Falkor captured footage of it with a remotely operated vehicle called SuBastian.

Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) SuBastian is recovered onto Research Vessel Falkor (too).Alex Ingle / Schmidt Ocean Institute

“It’s exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling to think that they have no idea that humans exist,” said Kat Bolstad of the Auckland University of Technology.

Bolstad was one of the scientific experts who assisted with verifying the video.

“For 100 years, we have mainly encountered them as prey remains in whale and seabird stomachs and as predators of harvested toothfish,” she said.

The squid was formally identified and named in 1925, but until now, no one has been able to capture it alive on camera.

It’s estimated that the squid can grow up to 23 feet in length and weigh as much as 1,100 pounds, the institute said. Little is known about the squid’s life cycle, but it loses its transparent body as it becomes an adult.

The colossal squid is not to be confused with a giant squid, according to the Natural History Museum of London. Both are massive cephalopods, but belong to different families of squid. The giant squid has much longer tentacles with a more narrow body, whereas the colossal squid has a much larger body with shorter tentacles.

Bolstad and Aaron Evans, an independent expert on the glass squid family who also helped verify the video, both said that the colossal squid has distinguishing characteristics, including hooks on the middle of their eight arms.

To date, the institute’s ROV SuBastian has captured the first confirmed footage of at least four squid species in the wild, including the Promachoteuthis last year and the ram’s horn squid in 2020.

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