First ever confirmed image of a colossal squid in the deep ocean

A colossal squid — the largest invertebrate on the planet — has been filmed alive in its wild habitat for the first time.

For decades, the Kraken-like colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) was more myth than reality: scientists had only a vague sense of its appearance from fragments of its remains found in the stomachs of the whales that eat the molluscs. In fact, it was through those remains that the species was officially described by zoologists in 1925.

Finally, in 1981, fishers in Antarctica accidentally reeled up a live colossal squid in their fishing nets. Since then, the animals have sometimes been killed as fishing bycatch, or have washed ashore dead.

Last month, a vessel from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a US-based non-profit organisation, was surveying the Southern Ocean near the South Sandwich Islands and live-streaming the footage from their remotely controlled deep-sea cameras, when an online viewer flagged that they might have just filmed a colossal squid.

Acting on the tip, the researchers sent the high-resolution footage to independent squid experts. The experts confirmed that the online viewer’s hunch was correct: the squid had distinctive hooks along the suckers on its eight arms, which are a hallmark of the colossal squid. It was roaming at 600 metres under the water’s surface.

While colossal squids are thought to grow up to 7 metres in length and 500 kilograms in weight, the squid caught on camera was a mere 30 centimetres in length: a baby.

“It’s amazing that every time we go down into the deep sea, we find something new and exciting,” says Jyotika Virmani of the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

A colossal squid may have already been filmed in its natural habitat in 2023 by researchers from another US-based organisation, Kolossal – but the sighting couldn’t be confirmed because the footage was too low in quality. The new squid recording might suggest the 2023 footage really does capture a colossal squid. “It’s the same size, same colour, similar depths, both in the Southern Ocean,” says Matt Mulrennan at Kolossal, who is still awaiting further confirmation.

However, there is as yet no footage of an adult colossal squid in the wild, and the lives of these gigantic invertebrates are still mysterious, says Steve O’Shea, formerly at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand, who coined the name “colossal squid” in the early 2000s. He once touted the animals as “seriously evil denizens of the deep” but is now convinced they are more like “giant gelatinous ticks, simply blobbing around in the water column near the seabed”.