Last year, a group of scientists trying to capture images of a colossal squid, the largest invertebrate on Earth, in its natural habitat may have won their prize when one of their underwater cameras captured a young glass squid swimming by.
Colossal squids are members of the glass squid family, so they look transparent to the eye – not that an eye is ever laid on them in everyday life. However, in the high-definition images captured by the researchers, the vermilion tentacles and faint blue bioluminescence significantly narrow down the list of potential species.
In the epitome of the term anti-climax, the ‘colossal squid’ was a juvenile 12 centimeters long, but because the expedition was privately funded, this immediately gave the team the impotica to return to the Antarctic and search longer, and at greater depths.
Kolossal expedition leader Matthew Mulrennan worked on the Antarctic tourist boat Ocean attempt where 200 tourists shared a stay with him and his team between December 2022 and April 2023.
Hakai Magazine reports that it took the tourists’ curiosity and support as motivation to keep the team from getting stuck in the endless surveillance of the icy waters beneath their ship.
“We would put the camera in the water at midnight or 1 a.m., stay awake until 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. and then have to get up at 6:00 or 7:00 a.m.,” Jennifer Herbig, a doctoral candidate at Memorial University in Newfoundland, told the Coastal magazine.
In total, the marine biologists captured 62 hours of footage, interrupted by ongoing efforts to free the camera lines from the sea ice around the South Shetland and South Georgia islands.
Then Paydirt, a small candidate for their colossal prey, swam by, although it could have been another large glass squid called Galiteuthis glacialis. The images were sent to the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, a country in whose territorial waters the only living adult colossal squid ever recovered from the deep: a female in 2007 that measured more than 10 feet long and weighed nearly 1,000 pounds .
“The two known Cranchiidae taxa seen in Antarctica Galiteuthis glacialis And Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni,” Dr. Aaron Evans, who played the Cranchiidae family and peer-reviewed the images, IFL Science told me.
“The squid you see here could belong to different life stages of any of these taxa – and is an exciting example of wild cranchiid behavior, as I can’t think of any existing video footage of these squids in their natural environment.”
NEWS FROM THE BENTHIAN ZONE: More than 100 new species of beautiful marine life found near underwater mountains (KIJK)
Without bones or cartilage to support its enormous size, the colossal squid relies on the intense oceanic pressure of its bathypelagic home to hold itself together, and simply falls apart at sea level. Nearly everything known about the animal before its 2007 discovery came from bits and pieces recovered from the stomachs of sperm whales, the squid’s natural predator.
For this reason, studying them in their natural habitat is the only chance to unravel the mystery of an animal that is both the largest cephalopod and the largest invertebrate on Earth.
OTHER DEEP SEA SQUID VIDEOS: Rare deep-sea squid with ‘headlights’ caught on video – camera mistaken for food – VIEW
Little or nothing is known about the colossal squid. They are believed to be ambush predators, like most hunters in the lightless depths. They have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom: 12 to 18 inches in diameter, or about the size of a volleyball, which is said to give them the best-in-class abilities to see through the darkness, identify bioluminescent creatures, and collect sperm. to detect. whales from a distance.
Kolossal and Mulrennan plan to return in November to continue the search. They plan to bring more cameras and longer camera cables, and perhaps equipment to take DNA samples in the water, so they can be confident of their discovery when they make larger, potentially colossal specimens.
WATCH the squid swim by in 2:23 seconds in the video below…
SHARE this fascinating discovery and excellent scientific work with your friends…