NOAAIt might look like something out of a horror film, but this giant squid is very much real and it’s just the second ever to be caught on camera in its natural habitat, in the Gulf of Mexico.
The creature was discovered by a team of researchers on an expedition funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.
They captured the impressive footage earlier this week at a depth of 759 meters (2,490 feet), 100 miles southeast of New Orleans.
You can watch the full video here:
The team documented their findings in a blog for NOAA, in which doctors Sönke Johnsen and Edith Widder described the squid as between 10 and 12 foot long, having been lured to a deep-sea device designed to mimic a glowing jellyfish.
They wrote:
The old maps often showed serpents at the edge, with the warning ‘here be monsters.’ However, the ‘monsters’ are here, in our own backyard.
Most importantly, we did not find a monster. The giant squid is large and certainly unusual from our human perspective, but if the video shows anything of the animal’s character, it shows an animal surprised by its mistake, backing off after striking at something that at first must have seemed appealing but was obviously not food.
This is the second time a giant squid has been caught on camera in its natural habitat. The first was in 2012 when a team of Japanese researchers discovered a creature nine miles east of Chichi Island in the North Pacific Ocean.
NOAAIt doesn’t get much cooler than that, and it seems like the people of the internet are equally impressed with the discovery, which is almost definitely worthy of a David Attenborough documentary.
One person tweeted ‘this video is mind blowing and think it’s only a juvenile giant squid…I can’t wait to see mama,’ while another added: ‘I could watch this graceful encounter all day.’
Incredible stuff.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.