Face to face at last with Captain Nemo’s old foe

Attempts have been underway for some time to capture film of the legendary giant squid (star role in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea). This has finally been accomplished.

Click on image to enlarge.

Scientists have taken the first photographs of the giant squid in its natural habitat, providing a remarkable glimpse of one of the most mysterious creatures on the planet.

The leviathan has long been a creature of legend. In 1753 the bishop of Bergen, in Norway, referred to one that was big enough to crush the largest man-of-war. It has been, and remains, inspirational to script writers and authors, most famously Jules Verne, who described how giant squid attacked Capt Nemo’s submarine Nautilus.

Until now, our only glimpse has been when the creatures have been washed up or are hauled to the surface after becoming entangled in fishing gear. Adults have never been seen in their natural habitat and all the available information on them has been based on dead or dying animals.

A description of how the pictures of the squid were obtained is published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, B, by Dr Tsunemi Kubodera, of the National Science Museum in Tokyo, and Kyoichi Mori, of the Ogaswara Whale Watching Association. They used a digital camera and bait dangling at a depth of about 450 fathoms off the Ogasawara Islands in the north Pacific.

While it has nothing to do with the next SCOTUS appointment, or the next election cycle, it’s still interesting.