December 27, 2015
Contributed Art /ANN News
Rare cephalopod Architeuthis filmed next to boat along Japan's west coast.
One of the legendary mysteries of the sea was first solved in September 2004 when, after millennia of speculation, the first living and healthy giant squid was photographed off Japan's Ogasawara Islands. Measuring in at nearly 25 feet long, the aquatic beast known as Architeuthis gave biologists an unprecedented look at the animal's habitat and predation behavior.
About three years after another giant squid was spotted and filmed for the first time in 2012, Motherboard reports that a 13-foot-long cephalopod was observed and filmed this week next to a boat's moorings in Toyama Bay, located along Japan's west coast.
The squid, filmed on December 24, led observers to identify it as the rare Architeuthis, a species typically only found floating dead on the sea surface or washed up on beaches. Known to dwell in the depths of the ocean, Architeuthis usually lives for up to five years, rapidly growing and reproducing just once during its lifetime. At its biggest, the species can measure up to 43 feet long.
Following the 2012 footage, oceanographer and inventor Edith Widder gave a TED Talk on the experience of identifying and filming Architeuthis, Popular Mechanics reports. Widder argues that discoveries of this sort underscore the need to increase funding for ocean exploration that would enable us to find new creatures and search for bioactive compounds that may prove beneficial to humanity.
