Colossal squid resembles a ‘glass sculpture’ in first footage taken from the deep sea

The first confirmed footage of the glacial glass squid, Galiteuthis glacialis, was documented in the Bellingshausen Sea near Antarctica. (ROV SuBastian/Schmidt Ocean Institute via CNN)

Scientists have captured the first confirmed footage of the elusive colossal squid in its natural environment 100 years after the marine creature was first identified and named, according to the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

Video, taken near the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, shows a juvenile squid, named Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, swimming at a depth of 1,968 feet (600 meters).

The footage was captured by SuBastian, a remotely operated vehicle deployed during an expedition by the institute’s research vessel, Falkor (too), in March. While the colossal squid is thought to grow up to 23 feet (7 meters) long and weigh as much as 1,110 pounds (500 kilograms) — which makes it the heaviest invertebrate on the planet — this juvenile squid measures nearly 1 foot (30 centimeters) long.

The squid has lost some of its “baby features,” such as stalked eyes that stick out the side of its head. Rather, the eyes are part of the head, and the head and body are more proportional to one another, said Dr. Aaron Evans, an independent researcher and an expert on Cranchiidae, or the glass squid family to which the colossal squid belongs. Evans, who did not participate in the expedition, independently verified the species along with Dr. Kat Bolstad, associate professor at New Zealand’s Auckland University of Technology.

“We could think of this maybe as a teenager squid,” Evans said during a news conference Tuesday. “It’s not quite an adult. It hasn’t fully matured yet. It’s still got a lot of growing to do. But it’s not a baby either. So, it’s a very exciting specimen for us to examine. For us to see this kind of midrange size in between a hatchling and an adult is really exciting because it gives us the opportunity to fill in some of those missing puzzle pieces to the life history of this very mysterious animal.”

Additionally, a team aboard a previous Falkor (too) expedition in January to the Southern Ocean near Antarctica captured footage of the glacial glass squid, which has never been seen before alive in its environment.

“The first sighting of two different squids on back-to-back expeditions is remarkable and shows how little we have seen of the magnificent inhabitants of the Southern Ocean,” Dr. Jyotika Virmani, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s executive director, said in a statement.

The high-resolution video footage of both squid species, which allowed scientists to confirm their identities, is opening a new window to delicate ocean life and shedding light on how animals survive within its depths.

A colossal find

Little is known about the life and behaviors of the colossal squid. Most of what scientists understand about the animal has come from dead or dying specimens found within the stomachs of whales and seabirds, or as predators of toothfish that are harvested and caught for human consumption, Bolstad said.

But with the new footage comes fresh insights, which were captured during the flagship expedition on a quest to search for previously unknown marine life, a collaboration between the Schmidt Ocean Institute, the Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census and GoSouth. GoSouth is a joint project of the UK’s University of Plymouth, GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Germany and the British Antarctic Survey.

Bolstad and Evans carefully reviewed the footage to search for identifying features of the colossal squid. Squid have eight shorter arms and two longer tentacles. Something that distinguishes the colossal squid is the presence of hooks on the middle of its eight arms. Evans said he began hyperventilating with excitement when he noticed the hooks present on the recently filmed juvenile squid.

“I have been researching deep-sea squids, including the colossal, since the early 2000s, and I can say that this is honestly one of the most exciting observations that we’ve had across the time that I’ve been working on deep-sea cephalopods,” Bolstad said during the news conference. “One of the things I love about this footage is how delicate this animal appears to be. It looks like a glass sculpture. Looking at these animals … thriving and in that delicate state, and then thinking about what it takes for humans to even remotely get to that environment … it’s just a great reminder of how much we have left to learn from nature.”

Bolstad also noted the presence of large rusty red brown chromatophores, or color-changing cells, on the squid’s mantle.

“(That) tells us that it almost certainly can switch back and forth between being completely transparent, which is how we see it, mostly in this footage, to being quite opaque,” Bolstad said. “And it probably has fine control over whether it can do that in certain regions of the body as well, which, again, we would have hypothesized, but we don’t know for sure until we see this animal.”

Bolstad noted that an organization called Colossal captured footage of a glass squid of a similar size in the Antarctic in the organization’s 2023-2024 observing campaign, but the lack of high-resolution footage made it impossible to distinguish which squid species it belonged to because its features weren’t discernible.

Bolstad clarified that the colossal squid is not the same as the giant squid. While the colossal squid lives exclusively in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions, the giant squid is found in other oceans of the world.

Treasure in Antarctica

During a separate expedition near Antarctica in January, Dr. Thom Linley was on board as the team examined the seafloor after a Chicago-size iceberg broke away from the George VI Ice Shelf.

Linley, curator of fishes at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, was in the ship’s control room as the Falkor (too) deployed a remotely operated vehicle through the depths of the Bellingshausen Sea when he saw something intriguing as SuBastian reached 2,254 feet (687 meters).

A glass squid floated into view, and Linley asked if the vehicle could pause during descent to capture footage.

“I know it’s a cute little squid, but this might be important,” Linley recalled saying. He shared the high-resolution footage with Bolstad. Evans was also brought in to review the imagery.

The juvenile colossal squid and the glacial glass squid, called Galiteuthis glacialis, appear similar, with both having hooks at the end of their two longer tentacles and transparent bodies.

But this particular glass squid observed during the descent held its arms loosely above its head in a maneuver called a cockatoo pose, which has been observed previously in glass squids.

Together, Bolstad and Evans were able to confirm that they were seeing a glacial glass squid in its frigid, deep environment for the first time.

Searching for adult colossal squid

Neither of the squid observed in the footage disappear or appear alarmed by presence of the remotely operated vehicle. Instead, they appear to hold their positions calmly, assessing if the vehicle is a threat.

But an adult colossal squid remains elusive, using its sensitive vision to avoid anything that may pose a risk.

“From their perspective, any time something large is coming forward, it’s not a good thing,” Evans said. “The adult colossal squid remains mysterious and enigmatic because it has these senses, which allow it to see us. The colossal squid is limited to Antarctica, where we don’t get the opportunity to research quite as frequently. So, it’s going to take us a bit longer for us to have that chance encounter where we get it on film.”

The research vessel won’t be returning to Antarctica until 2028, but it will be operating in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Argentina and Uruguay over the next four years, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Virmani said. The vehicle’s dives are streamed live on the institute’s YouTube channel so anyone can follow along with its expeditions to the deep, she said.

“Now that we have the ability to share (dives) in real time in this way and show people how beautiful the things are, how many things remain to be discovered, and that people can come along with us as we make these discoveries, I feel like our ability to appreciate the deep sea on a much wider scale is moving towards where it should have been all along,” Bolstad said.

By Ashley Strickland, CNN