The deep sea environment of the Earth’s polar deep seas are home to mystical sea creatures, such as giant sea spiders, Antarctic sea pigs, and phantom jellyfish. However, these animals are difficult to find and identify. Some are known simply because researchers found the remains in the fishing nets and in the belly of seabirds. However, last Christmas Day, the crew of R/V Falkor (Too), a research vessel at the Schmidt Ocean Institute, saw a creature that has never been seen before.
This particular dive was part of National Geographic and Rolex’s permanent planetary expedition, initiatives to document climate change in mountains, rainforests and oceans.
The team had planned to deploy Subastasian, a remotely operated vehicle, to a site known as the Powell Basin, but the ice block movement forced the group to instead explore the outer edge of the area.
When the submarine dropped 7,000 feet, the team unexpectedly found a shadow through the live feed. It turned out to be an Antarctic gonate squid, a rare species of 3 feet long, and released a green cloud of ink.
“It was a beautiful squid,” said Andrew Serber, a deep-sea researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, on board the boat. “You’re always seeing beauty in the deep sea. This is just one of the classic examples of that.”
As far as the team knows, the Antarctic gonate squid has never been seen alive before. They tracked it for a few minutes, recorded it on video, capturing the creature’s red colour and white spots.
“Videos like this really excite me,” said Lindsay Sara, a museum scientist who manages a collection of feathered invertebrates at the Oceanography Institute and is not involved in the expedition. Discovering these species “can be really beneficial about how they live in great depths,” Sarah said. She added that Unidentified specimens may be sitting in collections around the world. In that case, video footage could help to clarify what they are.
Previous sightings of this species of squid were mostly confined to fishing boats and individuals who remained squid, found in other marine animals in the Falkland Islands.
“It’s always exciting to see live footage of creatures that were previously only known from dead specimens,” said Bruce Robison, a deep-sea ecologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Institute, who was not involved in the expedition.
For those on board the ship, the discovery was “pure uplifting,” Dr. Serber said. There was a fever of excitement even before they properly identified the squid. To verify the species, Dr. Serre and his colleagues sent images taken by underwater vehicles to taxonomists around the world.
Kat Bolstad, a cephalopod biologist at Auckland Institute of Technology in New Zealand, helped identify animals. Although the squid’s gender and age were difficult to determine, a single hook of each tentacle seen through the images sent to her confirmed that the species was Gonatus antalcticus.
The hook may help secure and latch onto prey, a feature shared with other squids. The squid also had a wound and a sucker mark on its arm in its mantle, possibly from a recent attack by another sea creature.
Deep sea squid is difficult to encounter and document. Doing research is challenging and expensive, thousands of feet below sea level, and animals tend to avoid surgery cars remotely. These vehicles are “deep aliens,” Dr. Serber said. “So it really depends on them for them to come and see us.”
This was not the first elusive squid filmed by Subastein, a remotely operated vehicle. This year, the submarine also saw the Mesonicottey Hamiltoni, a giant squid a century later when animals were first described in scientific papers.
However, little is known about the Antarctic gonate squid. Antarctic squids live in southern ocean waters and lay deeper than 2,000 feet.
Penguins in the area are known to feast on Antarctica gonate squid. They are also preyed by Colossal Squid, which shares the same depth and water.
This discovery promises to shed light on the lives of gonate squids in Antarctica and sets more questions. How far do these squids move? What is their range? What do they eat in the deep stuff? How big do they grow?
“We know very little about that community, so we can only question all sorts of things because there can be all sorts of things going on,” Dr. Robison said.
