The colossal squid Mesysychoteuthis Hamiltoni: resumed for the primary time in life within the depths of the abysses | EUROtoday

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Filmed for the primary time one of the elusive and mysterious inhabitants of the abysses: it’s the colossal squid Mesysychoteuthis Hamiltoni, the heaviest invertebrate on the earth, which may attain 7 meters in size and 500 kilos of weight.

His existence had been recognized for a century, however to this point no alive specimen had ever been seen swimming in his pure habitat. The turning level got here final March 9, when a pet simply 30 centimeters lengthy was resumed at 600 meters deep within the southern Atlantic Ocean by the Subastian underwater robotic of the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

The surprising assembly came about whereas the researchers aboard the ‘Falkor (Too) ship’ have been conducting a 35 -day expedition close to the Austral Sandwich Islands to census new types of marine life.

The video obtained due to the underwater robotic represents the primary testimony of the life existence of this animal (larger than the well-known large squid), which had been documented to this point solely via useless specimens or oblique observations.

“It is exciting to see the first in situ movie of a young specimen of colossal squid: for one hundred years we met them mainly as prey that remained in the stomachs of whales and marine birds and as predators of cured cod,” explains the biologist Marina Kat Bolstad of the University of Technology of Auckland, one of many unbiased consultants consulted by the scientific expedition staff to confirm the film.