subject: Bigfin Squid: A Mystery Of The Deep [print this page] In November 2007, a group of scientists were researching at a drilling site called Perdido, in the Gulf of Mexico. While they remained on the deck, they watched monitors in front of them, carefully maneuvering their remotely operated underwater vehicle - or ROV, for short - to search for vents and gather information, four thousand feet under the surface. The submerged cameras swiveled back and forth, the view lighted garishly by night vision filters, when suddenly a shape popped up and filled the frame for a fleeting second, appearing from seemingly out of nowhere like a horror movie villain.
The scientists re-scanned the area with the camera, hoping to quickly get a second view. They zoomed, pitched, turned, and finally focused on the shape: wide fins undulated like flags on the top of the gigantic squid's body. The creature hadn't fled, and remained still as the ROV - from a distance - trained its cameras and lights up and down its body, revealing ten arms that extended perpendicularly from its body for a short length before bending like elbows and extending roughly twenty feet down into the depths.
International headlines were made when video of the creature was released to the public. This was the latest sighting of what is believed to be a bigfin squid, one of the rarest and least studied cephalopods on the planet. The only specimens that have ever been captured were either larvae, paralarvae, or juvenile; no adult has ever been studied up close and thus there are many questions that still haven't been answered. No one knows what they eat, or how; the basic taxonomy, average age, mating techniques, and whether or not there are subspecies or only a single one - are all a complete mystery.
Unique for cephalopods is the fact that the arms of the bigfins are all the same length; some serve different purposes and it's normal for them to vary. These animals look completely different from all other previously discovered squids; it's hypothesized that the strange bend in their arms helps to prevent the extremely long appendages from tangling with one another. It may have specialized hunting techniques or it may just drag it's tentacles along the sea floor scooping up whatever food it can find.
Two decades ago, juvenile specimens were noted off the coast of Hawaii; the animal was so different from anything that had been seen before that a brand new taxonomical family was created: Magnapinnidae. There is so little information about the bigfins that they have been grouped into this family and genus Magnapinna, at least until more is known about them. Marine biologists hope to do more investigation, but, like all deep-sea animals, just trying to find these squids is a gamble. Whatever they find in the future, it's sure to be exciting and odd.
Sourced partially from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/11/081124-giant-squid-magnapinna.html
