Giant luminescent squid captured on film for first time
Thursday Feb 15 12:00 AEDT
Japanese scientists have released video footage of a live giant squid in what is believed to be the first time the elusive creature has been filmed in its natural environment.
The research team, led by Tsunemi Kubodera, said they videotaped the giant squid — also known as Taningia danae — using an underwater high definition camera at depths of 240-940 metres off the Ogasawara Islands in the North Pacific.
The female squid, which measured about seven metres long, died while it was subsequently being caught.
Kubodera said that the creature was not fully grown and was relatively small by giant squid standards.
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The footage, according to the research paper, shows the squid's attacking behaviour and bioluminescence (propensity to emit light) which suggests that the cephalopod is far from the sluggish, inactive creature it was previously suspected of being.
Kubodera and his team note that the squid swims both forwards and backwards by flapping its large triangular fins and changes direction quickly by bending its flexible body.
The team also say that the video shows the squid emitting short bright flashes from light-producing organs on the tips of its arms called photophores.
They suggest that the bioluminescent flashes act as a device to blind or disorientate potential victims and could also be a means to measure the distance between the squid and its prey.
Giant squid, formally called Architeuthis, are the world's largest invertebrates.
Because they live in the depths of the ocean, they have long been wrapped in mystery and embellished in the folklore of sea monsters, appearing in ancient Greek myths or attacking a submarine in Jules Verne's classic novel "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea".
Until the successes of Kubodera and his team, most scientific study of the creatures had to rely on partial specimens that had washed ashore dead or dying, or had been found in the digestive systems of whales or very large sharks.
There's a video footage link also - but I don't know how to upload it:http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=227580