Japanese scientists have photographed a live giant squid in the wild for the first time, ending an age-old quest to document one of the most mysterious and mythologized creatures of the deep sea.
The team led by Tsunemi Kubodera, from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, tracked the 8m Architeuthis as it attacked prey at a depth of 900m off the coast of Japan's Bonin islands.
"We believe this is the first time a grown giant squid has been captured on camera in its natural habitat," said Kyoichi Mori, a marine researcher who co-authored an article on the finding in yesterday's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
The camera was operated by remote control during research in autumn last year, capping a three-year search for the squid around the Bonin islands, 1,000km south of Tokyo, Mori said yesterday.
The feat was praised by researchers as an important milestone in observation of the enormous creatures, which appeared in the writings of the ancient Greeks as well as Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
"It's the holy grail of deep sea animals," said Jim Barry, a marine biologist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California who has searched for giant squid without luck. "It's one that we have never seen alive, and now someone has video of one."
New Zealand's leading authority on giant squid, marine biologist Steve O'Shea, hailed the Japanese team's feat, although he said the photographs in themselves would probably not advance knowledge about the animals much.
"Our reaction is one of tremendous relief that the so-called ... race is over ... because the animal has consumed the last eight or nine years of my life," he said, adding that Kubodera's determination in tracking down the animal "is truly commendable. I think it is fantastic."
Mori said the squid, which was purplish red like smaller squid, attacked its quarry aggressively.
"Contrary to belief that the giant squid is relatively inactive, the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey," Mori said.
"It went after some bait that we had on the end of the camera and became stuck, and left behind a tentacle 6m long," Mori said.
Kubodera said researchers ran DNA tests on the tentacle and found it matched those of other giant squids found around Japan. The animal -- which has eight arms and two longer feeding tentacles -- was not in danger of dying from the injury, he said.
"Other sightings were of smaller or very injured squids washed toward the shore -- or of parts of a giant squid," Kubodera said. "This is the first time a full-grown, healthy squid has been sighted in its natural environment in deep water."
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