Giant squid, often incorrectly referred to as giant squid, typically live in the deep sea and are rarely seen. Usually you only get to see the animals when they wash up dead on the beach. Two divers off the coast of Japan have now managed to capture sensational images of a live young animal (video above).
According to the NHK television channel, diving instructors Tanaka and Miki Yosuke were diving last Friday off Japan’s Nekozaki Peninsula, north of Osaka, when they were very surprised to encounter the giant squid. It is estimated that the immature animal had a mantle length of about eight feet and was four feet long with tentacles.
Animals rarely come to the sea surface
Giant squid are believed to live at depths greater than 300 meters and rarely surface. Only since the use of deep-sea trawls have more giant squid been brought to the surface and studied.
All kinds of sailor legends are entwined around the giant squid, which has eight arms and two long tentacles, and they are often referred to as multi-armed sea monsters. In the depths of the oceans, they have largely escaped exploration until now. Researchers usually only get their hands on dead specimens that have washed up or been found in the stomachs of sperm whales, their predators.
Filmed in habitat for the first time in 2004
It wasn’t until 2004 that a giant squid was filmed in its natural habitat for the first time. The animals eat fish and smaller cephalopods and as adults are hunted by whales, especially sperm whales.
According to experts, the still largely undiscovered animals, including their tentacles, can grow up to ten meters long. Even larger dimensions are questionable, as the squid’s arms are extremely stretchy and likely led to measurement errors in the past.
The largest squid recorded was ten meters long
The largest correctly measured giant squid to date was 10 meters long and weighed 495 kilograms and was caught in February 2007 by New Zealand fishermen in Antarctica. But by then the huge beast was already gone…
Source: Krone
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