Rare ocean creature caught on video swimming ‘sluggishly’ off Japan. See the encounter
An elusive deep-sea creature made a rare appearance off the coast of Japan, where a local diver filmed the encounter.
Yosuke Tanaka, co-owner of Dive Resort T-Style in Toyooka City, received a call from a ferryman on the evening of Jan. 6, Tanaka wrote in a blog post. The ferryman spotted a large, strange squid.
Tanaka hurried to the spot and dove into the black waters of the Sea of Japan. Just below the surface, he spotted the animal: a giant squid.
The 8-foot-long squid looked very weak, Tanaka said. Video shared by Kobe Shimbun showed the mottled pink ocean creature moving slowly near the surface.
“There it was,” Tanaka told AFP on Thursday, Jan. 19. “It was an enormous squid.”
Giant squid, or architeuthis dux, live deep underwater, according to Smithsonian Ocean. Most known information about the elusive and rare creature comes from dead carcasses that float to the surface. Giant squid were recorded alive in 2006, the organization said.
The squid Tanaka filmed was moving “very sluggishly,” he told AFP. “We didn’t see the kinds of agile movements that many fish and marine creatures normally show. Its tentacles and fins were moving very slowly.”
The creature’s slow movement, appearance and presence near the surface indicate it was probably unhealthy, Live Science reported.
“You can tell this squid is approaching the end of its life by looking at its skin,” squid biologist Sarah McAnulty told the outlet. “A healthy giant squid should have smooth shiny skin and be kinda red. This poor thing has been through it!”
Toyooka City is about 370 miles west of Tokyo and along the Sea of Japan.
Google Translate was used to translate Yosuke Tanaka’s blog post.
This story was originally published January 23, 2023 at 11:21 AM with the headline "Rare ocean creature caught on video swimming ‘sluggishly’ off Japan. See the encounter."
