The colossal squid Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni: caught for the first time in the depths

Filmed for the first time is one of the most elusive and mysterious inhabitants of the deep: the colossal squid Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni,the world's heaviest invertebrate, which can be up to 7 metres long and weigh up to 500 kilos.

Its existence had been known for a century, but until now no living specimen had ever been seen swimming in its natural habitat. The breakthrough came last 9 March, when a little 30-centimetre-long pup was filmed at a depth of 600 metres in the South Atlantic Ocean by the underwater robot SuBastian of the Schmidt ocean institute.
In the video you can see the iridescence of the eyeballs standing out in the darkness of the ocean.

The unexpected encounter occurred while researchers aboard the ship 'Falkor (too)' were conducting a 35-day expedition near the southern Sandwich Islands to survey new marine life.

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The video obtained thanks to the underwater robot represents the first evidence of the living existence of this animal (larger than the famous giant squid), which until now had only been documented through dead specimens or indirect observations.

"It is exciting to see the first in situ footage of a young colossal squid specimen: for a hundred years we have encountered them mainly as prey left in the stomachs of whales and seabirds and as predators of captured cod," explains marine biologist Kat Bolstad of Auckland University of Technology, one of the independent experts consulted by the scientific expedition team to verify the footage.