First giant squid video

Reuters reports:

Giant squid caught on video by Japanese scientists

December 22, 2006

TOKYO – Its mass of reddish tentacles flailing, a giant squid fought a losing battle to evade capture in a video unveiled by Japanese scientists on Friday.

Images of the squid — a relatively small female about 3.5 meters (11 ft 6 in) long and weighing 50 kg (110 lb) — were the ultimate prize for zoologists at the National Science Museum, who have been pursuing one of the ocean’s most mysterious creatures for years.

“Nobody has ever seen a live giant squid except fishermen,” team leader Tsunemi Kubodera of the museum’s zoology department said in an interview on Friday.

“We believe these are the first ever moving pictures of a giant squid.”

Little was known until recently about the creature thought to have inspired the myth of the “kraken”, a tentacled monster that was blamed by sailors for sinking ships off Norway in the 18th century.

Unconfirmed reports say giant squid can grow up to 20 meters long, but according to scientists they are unlikely to pose a threat to ships because they spend their lives hundreds of meters under the sea.

See also here.

See the video here (click on ‘Bekijk video’).

Giant Pacific octopus attacks submarine; with video; here.