For over a century, the colossal squid has been one of the deep sea’s most slippery enigmas. Known mostly through bits and pieces found in whale bellies and a handful of dying adults spotted by fishers, this 23-foot-long (7-meter-long) legend has long evaded a proper close-up. Until now.
On March 9, aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor (too), researchers caught their white whale—er, squid. A juvenile colossal squid measuring about a foot (30 centimeters) was filmed alive near the South Sandwich Islands in the Atlantic Ocean. Researchers spotted the squid with the institute’s remotely operated vehicle SuBastian, which captured footage of the animal in its natural habitat around 2,000 feet (609 meters) deep.
This is the first confirmed footage ever of the squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), which is the heavyweight champ of the invertebrates, in the wild. The squids can weigh more than half a ton (453 kilograms), but despite their size, are elusive and difficult to observe. ROVs like SuBastian are best positioned to observe such deep sea squids, whose extreme habitats make it difficult for humans to explore otherwise.
The sighting was part of an Ocean Census flagship expedition, a globe-spanning effort to catalog deep-sea biodiversity, and it just so happens to coincide with the 100-year anniversary of the colossal squid’s formal identification. Better late than never!
But wait—there’s more squid. Just weeks earlier, on January 25, the Falkor (too) crew captured the first-ever footage of the glacial glass squid (Galiteuthis glacialis) in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica. Known for its ghostly transparent body and signature “cockatoo pose,” in which the squid positions its arms above its head, this elusive species had never been filmed alive either.
Two newly observed squid in three months is a pretty solid rate of discovery—the colossal squid images alone would have been a big win for the Schmidt Ocean Institute team. Besides the squid, the Falkor (too) team spent last month investigating an ancient ecosystem revealed by the calving of an iceberg the size of Chicago.
Both squid discoveries were confirmed by experts Kat Bolstad and Aaron Evans, who reviewed the footage of the mollusks to certify their identities. Juvenile colossal squids look similar to the glacial glass squid, but the colossal squid’s arms have hooks in their middle, helping distinguish it from its translucent cousin.
And while both juveniles sport see-through bodies and long tentacles, only the colossal squid grows into a behemoth with eyes the size of basketballs capable of weighing up to 1,100 pounds—making it the heaviest invertebrate on Earth.
“This is exciting and humbling,” said Bolstad. “They have no idea humans even exist.” Given how extreme the depths in which they reside, it may be a while before colossal squids ever have to deal with a human face-to-face.
The new discoveries are just SuBastian‘s latest forays into cephalopod science. The ROV previously logged the first in-situ sightings of the Ram’s Horn Squid (Spirula spirula) in 2020 and the Promachoteuthis in 2024, as well as one yet-to-be-confirmed sighting.
The deep sea’s denizens are as elusive as they are massive. But with a little submersible and a lot of luck, scientists are slowly lighting up even the sneakiest of squids.
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