The strange and ethereal bigfin squid just showed up off the coast of Australia

Bigfin squid sightings are incredibly rare—the creatures live thousands of feet below the surface of the ocean, and only about a dozen sightings have ever been reported. In, researchers captured the creatures on video off the coast of Australia, floating eerily through the blue. The footage isamong squid researchers, as it provides clues to a better understanding of mysterious, largely undiscovered life that lurks deep beneath the ocean’s surface.

The videos were taken in a bay called the Great Australian Bight using a combination of remotely operated vehicles and towed cameras. The towed cameras floated about two miles underwater, keeping a distance of between six and 14 feet from the seafloor. The cameras took constant video and a still photo was taken every five seconds.

The researchers couldn’t ascertain the exact species of the squids in the videos . However, they were able to build a pretty good idea of the anatomy of the squid using visual analysis and other methods—including using lasers attached to the ROVs—to find that the squid’s tentacles are about 11 times longer than their body length. The purpose of these tentacles remains elusive, but researchers believe that they are “sticky” and can be used to trap their food.

There’s a lot we still don’t know about the animals that might live in the deepest, most pristine parts of the ocean. The last paper published on sightings of bigfin squids was in 2001 and described eight bigfin squid sightings off the coast of Texas. Because of the vast distance between sightings, scientists believe that the squid could live all over the world and could actually be very common in the ocean ecosystem.

The bigfin squid sightings off the coast of Australia contribute invaluable knowledge to further our understanding of deep-sea life. “Little is known of Bigfin Squid, and many other deep-sea cephalopods, largely due to the inaccessibility of their vast yet little explored deep-sea environments,” Deborah Osterhage, lead author of the paper,

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