While exploring the Tonga Trench earlier this month in the South Pacific Ocean, scientists gathered extremely rare footage of a bizarre and elusive deep-sea animal, the bigfin squid (Magnapinna). The Deep Sea Research Centre shared the footage from 10,800 feet (3,300 m) on X last week.
In the eerie video, you see the squid, which has incredibly long, thin arms “walking” along the bottom of the sea. Bigfins get their name from the fact that their fins “stretch to about 90% of the length of the mantle, or the main body of the squid,” according to the Ocean Conservancy. The organization also says the largest bigfin squid on record was more than 20 feet long.
Squids have eight arms and two tentacles, which, in the bigfin’s case, look about the same. The Ocean Conservancy suggests those arms and tentacles help the squid catch prey.
See the rare bigfin squid footage here:
Rare 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘢 sighting 🦑
While exploring Tonga Trench this month at 3,300m we captured footage of the elusive 𝘔𝘢𝘨𝘯𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘯𝘯𝘢 squid. Our gift to you for #Squidtember!@Hadalbloke @uwanews @InkfishExplore pic.twitter.com/Tx9l9oJfFk
— Deep Sea Research Centre (@deepseauwa) September 19, 2024
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