http://gizmodo.com/5973909/kraken-filmed-in-the-pacific-for-the-first-time
science Jan 7, 2013 4:38 PM 137,902 117 Live Giant Squid Filmed in the Pacific for the First Time Jesus Diaz This amazing sea creature is an Architeuthis. Or a Kraken, as the ancient vikings used to call it. We knew the kraken wasn't a mythical creature. Giant squids like this have been captured in the past, usually near the sea's surface, but this is the first time one has been filmed alive in the wild, majestically swimming at 2,066 feet underwater. Its silver skin glimmering in the dark under the submersible's lights, looking suspiciously at the sub with its giant black eyes, the sea monster was amazing, according to Tsunemi Kubodera, the mission leader: It was shining and so beautiful. I was so thrilled when I saw it first hand, but I was confident we would because we rigorously researched the areas we might find it, based on past data. Researchers around the world have tried to film giant squid in their natural habitats, but all attempts were in vain before. The giant squid was found in the depths of the Pacific Ocean by a team of three Japanese scientists crammed inside a research submarine for 400 hours and 100 missions. The team located the monster 9.3 miles (15 kilometres) east of Chichi Island, a small archipelago about 150 miles (241.4 kilometers) north of Iwo Jima. Kubodera was able to find another giant calamari in the past, but that was not an Architeuthis but a Taningia danae. The Taningia—a red beast with eight arms—is quite a bit smaller than the Architeuthis. There's another monster that hasn't been filmed yet, even bigger than the Architeuthis: the Mesonychoteuthis. The video, filmed in high definition, will be showed by the Discovery Channel soon, in the final episode of Curiosity. [Discovery via El País—In Spanish] Architeuthis show to approximate scale next to the Shinkai 6500, a famous 31-feet-long Japanese manned research submersible. Full sizeSize comparison [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
