Giant squid unveiled

Giant Squid Filmed by Scientists for First Time

TOKYO (Dec. 22) — Its mass of reddish tentacles flailing, a giant squid fought a losing battle to evade capture in a video unveiled by Japanese scientists on Friday.

Images of the squid — a relatively small female about 12 feet long and weighing 110 pounds — were the ultimate prize for zoologists at the National Science Museum, who have been pursuing one of the ocean’s most mysterious creatures for years.

“Nobody has ever seen a live giant squid except fishermen,” team leader Tsunemi Kubodera of the museum’s zoology department said in an interview on Friday. “We believe these are the first ever moving pictures of a giant squid.”

Little was known until recently about the creature thought to have inspired the myth of the “kraken,” a tentacled monster that was blamed by sailors for sinking ships off Norway in the 18th century.

Unconfirmed reports say giant squid can grow up to 60 feet long, but according to scientists they are unlikely to pose a threat to ships because they spend their lives hundreds of meters under the sea.

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