Wow. For the first time, a live colossal squid was filmed (Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni) in its natural habitat. Not a seven and a half meters adult, a small “colossal”, a puppy: 30 centimeters of transparency which float at 600 meters deep off the southern Sandwich islands.
The video was shot by the Subastian robot, during a scientific mission of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and can be seen here: YouTu.be/lzpog9h8hlo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzpog9h8hlo
The squid is almost invisible. The body is transparent, the minimum movements, like a shadow difficult to notice, difficult to think of it colossal. Not that it is the first contact with the species, but the first direct sighting: so far we knew them only for the remains recovered from the stomach of the sperm whales.
The colossal squid are the heaviest invertebrates ever known, they have tentacles with hooks and live in a world without light, where time seems not to be there.
This little one is not afraid, at least for now. Yet it is real: the abyss has shown itself for a moment. The rest, as always, remains below.
While looking for extraterrestrial life in extraterrestrial planets, we still have a lot to discover on animals that live hidden on our planet, difficult to study consider the extreme environmental conditions in which they live.