Scientists Just Filmed a Live Colossal Squid for the First Time Ever

#ColossalSquid #DeepSea #OceanDocumentary In March twenty twenty-five, a robot sinking through the freezing South Atlantic switched on its lights at one thousand nine hundred sixty-eight feet. Something drifted into view. A squid. About one foot long. Clear as glass, with shining eyes and eight arms spread wide like an open hand. Nobody could say for sure what it was. Later, experts studied the video frame by frame. They spotted tiny hooks along its arms. And they confirmed it. For the first time in history, humans had filmed a living colossal squid in its home. This animal can grow to about one thousand one hundred pounds. Adults carry eyes about as wide as dinner plates, among the largest ever measured on any creature. For one hundred years, we only met it dead. In pieces. Pulled from whale stomachs and fishing lines. Yet this young one looked delicate. Almost gentle. So what turns a floating glass sculpture into the heaviest invertebrate on Earth? Today we follow it down. Into the stomach of a sperm whale. Onto a museum table where a frozen giant thawed in salt water. Into a silent war fought with light, in the black water near Antarctica. Prepare yourselves. We descend. Sources and further reading: Schmidt Ocean Institute, "First Confirmed Footage of a Colossal Squid, and It's a Baby!" https://schmidtocean.org/first-coloss... Ocean Census, "First Footage of Live Juvenile Colossal Squid Filmed on the Ocean Census Expedition to the South Sandwich Islands" https://oceancensus.org/first-footage... The Conversation, "A century after its discovery, scientists capture first confirmed footage of a colossal squid in the deep" https://theconversation.com/a-century... National Geographic, "In a surprising deep sea first, a colossal squid is caught on camera" https://www.nationalgeographic.com/an... NPR, "A colossal squid is filmed in its natural habitat for the first time" https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-... Science Friday, "A Colossal Squid Video? That's A Big Deal" (interview with Kat Bolstad) https://www.sciencefriday.com/segment... Te Papa, "Colossal squid at Te Papa" https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/digital-mu... Te Papa, "The arms and tentacles of the colossal squid" https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/digital-mu... Nilsson et al., "A unique advantage for giant eyes in giant squid," Current Biology (2012), via PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22425... Nilsson et al., "The giant eyes of giant squid are indeed unexpectedly large, but not if used for spotting sperm whales," BMC Evolutionary Biology (2013), via NCBI PMC https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles... Rosa and Seibel, "Slow Pace of Life of the Antarctic Colossal Squid," Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the UK (2010) https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_fa... National Geographic, "Colossal Squid a Soft, Sluggish Drifter" https://www.nationalgeographic.com/sc... Smithsonian Magazine, "Is This the First Recorded Footage of a Colossal Squid Living Freely?" https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc... Hakai Magazine, "Visiting the Kraken at Home" https://hakaimagazine.com/news/visiti... Mission Blue, "The Biggest Eyes in the Animal Kingdom" (interview with Eric Warrant) https://missionblue.org/2012/08/the-b... #DeepSeaCreatures #MarineBiology #SouthernOcean #Antarctica #OceanExploration #SeaMonsters #GiantSquid #ColdDepths