First video of a giant squid in its natural habitat

In January 2013, an expedition of scientists from Japan’s National Museum of Nature and Science, the Discovery Channel and Japanese broadcaster NHK announced that they had captured the ever video footage of a giant squid (Architeuthis dux) in its natural habitat. It took 100 dives in a submersible to obtain the footage of the elusive beast, shot at a depth of 640 metres in the Pacific Ocean 1000 km south of Tokyo. The team lured the three-metre-long squid to a piece of bait, which it devoured over a period of 20 minutes. They then followed it down to a depth of 900 metres before losing sight of the beast. Made public in January 2013, the broadcast film shows a 3-m shining silver specimen lacking its two longest arms – had these been present, the squid's entire length would have been approximately 8 m. It was filmed from a submersible at depths of up to 900 m as it swam in the northern Pacific Ocean's abyss around 15 km east of Japan's Chichi Island.