Live giant squid caught on camera
A live, adult giant squid has been caught on camera in the wild for the very first time.
Japanese researchers took pictures of the elusive creature hunting 900m down, enveloping its prey by coiling its tentacles into a ball. The images show giant squid, known as Architeuthis, are more vigorous hunters than has been supposed. The images, captured in the Pacific Ocean, appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Documentary companies have invested millions of dollars trying to film adult giant squid in their natural environment. These efforts have met with little success – though one team has managed to capture a juvenile on film.
Japanese fishermen have taken snaps of an adult at the surface but, until now, no one had obtained images of the animal in its deep-sea hunting grounds.
Slippery customer
In their efforts to photograph the huge cephalopod, Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori have been using a camera and depth recorder attached to a long-line, which they lower into the sea from their research vessel.
Below the camera, they suspend a weighted jig – a set of ganged hooks to snag the squid – along with a single Japanese common squid as bait and an odour lure consisting of chopped-up shrimps.
At 0915 local time on 30 September 2004, they struck lucky. At a depth close to 1km in waters off Japan’s Ogasawara Islands, an 8m-long Architeuthis wrapped its long tentacles around the bait, snagging one of them on the jig.
Kubodera and Mori took more than 550 images of the giant squid as it made repeated attempts to detach itself.
The pictures show the squid spreading its arms, enveloping the long-line and swimming away in its efforts to struggle free.
Finally, four hours and 13 minutes after it was first snagged, the attached tentacle broke off, allowing the squid to escape. The researchers retrieved a 5.5m portion with the line.
Source: bbc.co.uk
