Cheap camera and a fishing boat used to take world's first photos of a live giant squid underwater

The first ever pictures of a live giant squid in its natural environment have been snapped in deep water off Japan. Working with a cheap camera and a fishing boat, the two Japanese researchers have succeeded where millions of dollars and international film crews have failed.

“This is very exciting. These pictures are a major leap forward for us,” says squid expert Mark Norman of Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

Tsunemi Kubodera of the National Science Museum in Tokyo and Kyoichi Mori of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association in Tokyo collected more than 550 digital images taken over more than four hours. These show the squid repeatedly attempting to detach a bait dangling beneath the camera, which was at a depth of 900 metres.

During these attempts, the club of one of the squid’s long feeding tentacles became caught in the bait equipment. It eventually broke off, and the team retrieved and genetically sequenced the 5.5-metre-long severed section to confirm that the animal was indeed Architeuthis dux. They estimate the squid’s total length was at least eight metres.

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Very cool. Just goes to show you that you don't always need an expensive research boat, and an expensive mini sub.

[edit on 28-9-2005 by NWguy83]

Here is another photo.

Link

I was talking about this last night with some guys, it's totally wild. They just stuck a camera down with some tuna. I can't get over this thing, especially the fact that they actually got a tentacle.

This asks questions, namely, how in the hell as this not happened before, and, frankly, why haven't they been seen before if they live so close. Or even WHY WOULD YOU EVER GO FISHING AGAIN?!

Originally posted by Amorymeltzer
I was talking about this last night with some guys, it's totally wild. They just stuck a camera down with some tuna. I can't get over this thing, especially the fact that they actually got a tentacle.

This asks questions, namely, how in the hell as this not happened before, and, frankly, why haven't they been seen before if they live so close. Or even WHY WOULD YOU EVER GO FISHING AGAIN?!

well maybe it hasn't happened before because people haven't went squid fishing in that area or the squid moves around alot and only comes up for food at certain times of the day.