Move Over Monday: Get Deep… Sea
The Mystery of the Giant Squid
Having only been seen in still photographs, and post-mortum, when they float to the surface (like the one seen above), the giant squid of ancient myth has been caught on live video. With the help of a deep-sea camera that doesn’t scare the animal away with too much light, ocean researcher, Edie Widder, created an optical illusion of live bait to attract the creature, which can grow to 50 feet, and shone with metal skin before attacking the camera.
Widder said:
“The reason we know giant squids exist is that they happen to float when they die. But we really [have] only explored 5 percent of the ocean, and I think we’ve explored that in the wrong way. I think we’ve scared a lot of animals away. So what about the stuff that doesn’t float when it dies?”
“The footage I got was just amazing to see… . The first few times we saw it on camera was like it was doing a fan dance and just showing us little bits of itself. We’d see the arms kind of wave by the camera. … But the most spectacular shot is when it came in on the attack … it comes up over the sphere — which is the optical lure that’s illuminating the bio-luminescent display — and attacks the camera itself.”
“The color was utterly different than any of us expected. The one that had been brought to the surface and that there were pictures of was red, and a lot of deep-sea squid are red. But this was a spectacular silver and gold. It just looks like it was carved out of metal, it’s just completely breathtaking and completely unexpected.” Read more at NPR.
The footage is slated to be released in a Discovery Channel documentary later January 27.
