Giant Squid Photographed Alive for the First Time — Ocean Yields Its Secret

For centuries, the giant squid (Architeuthis dux) was considered a creature of myth—referenced in ancient Norse legends as the Kraken and inspiring sailors' tales of sea monsters. Despite occasional strandings of dead or dying specimens, no living adult giant squid had ever been photographed in its natural deep-ocean habitat until 2004. In September 2004, Japanese researchers Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori deployed a camera rig attached to bait at a depth of 900 meters in the Pacific Ocean near the Ogasawara Islands. After several unsuccessful attempts, they captured over 500 photographs of a giant squid attacking the bait—the first documentation of a living giant squid in the wild. The animal was estimated at approximately 8 meters in length. In 2006, Kubodera and his team filmed a living giant squid near the surface, the first video footage ever obtained. In 2012, a joint expedition produced high-definition video of a giant squid glowing gold and silver in the deep water. The discovery of the giant squid in its natural habitat validated centuries of ocean monster reports and demonstrated that large and completely unknown creatures could survive undetected in the deep ocean. Marine biologists have estimated that the deep sea remains less explored than the surface of Mars, lending credibility to ongoing reports of unidentified large marine animals.