Big Squid

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.

Giant squids grow up to 18 metres long (59ft).  The colossal squid is the largest known squid, no-one knows exactly how long it grows but it's bigger and meaner than the giant.  A  juvenile colossal squid was caught in the Antarctic in 2003.