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IMAGE: (NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research)
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Squids are some of the most uncanny ocean animals we see. They're twisty, and strange, and have cephalopod cunning. And now marine biologists have found a squid unlike any they've seen before.
The crew of the NOAA's research vessel Okeanos Explorer spotted the creature deep under the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, in the mesopelagic zone at a depth of around 850 metres (2,790 feet).
It was coasting along in a highly unusual pose, its tentacles folded back in what resembled a defensive posture, but to an extreme degree - so that it looked almost completely unlike a squid at all.
"My first reaction was, 'What in the hell was that?'," NOAA biologist Mike Vecchione told National Geographic.
"It didn't look like any squid I had seen, until we started getting close and the animal started rotating around."
Squids are some of the most uncanny ocean animals we see. They're twisty, and strange, and have cephalopod cunning. And now marine biologists have found a squid unlike any they've seen before.
The crew of the NOAA's research vessel Okeanos Explorer spotted the creature deep under the waves of the Gulf of Mexico, in the mesopelagic zone at a depth of around 850 metres (2,790 feet).
It was coasting along in a highly unusual pose, its tentacles folded back in what resembled a defensive posture, but to an extreme degree - so that it looked almost completely unlike a squid at all.
"My first reaction was, 'What in the hell was that?'," NOAA biologist Mike Vecchione told National Geographic.
"It didn't look like any squid I had seen, until we started getting close and the animal started rotating around."
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