The underwater vehicle was coasting about six feet above the ocean floor, two miles deep, when a pinkish, mysterious creature swam into its camera’s sights, drawing gasps in the research vessel floating at the surface.
At first, postdoctoral researcher Olívia Soares Pereira thought the vehicle had come across a jellyfish. Then she saw on the monitor a characteristic “elbow” and realized that what she was seeing was much rarer.
“Magnapinna!” Pereira shouted, and pulled out her phone to take a video.
The Aug. 7 sighting of the elusive bigfin squid was the first time the animal has been seen alive in the northeast Pacific Ocean, and one of the few times it has been seen at all, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Only about 70 have been observed or collected, the institute said in a statement.
And it wasn’t even the goal of the 10-day research expedition.
The institute, along with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, sent a research vessel Aug. 3 on a trip to study underwater mountains, called seamounts. The geographic features are hot spots of biodiversity, with corals, sponges and even an octopus garden, just like in the Beatles song. One of the key goals of this particular expedition was to gather data to determine if whales were leaving behind furrows in the sediment of the Davidson Seamount, about 80 miles southwest of Monterey, as they chased fish for food.
The underwater drone, tethered to the ship with cables and about the size of a small car, was just above the ocean floor as the researchers and pilots searched for furrows potentially left by whales.
One of the senior researchers on the expedition, Andrew DeVogelaere, said he was focused on the seafloor, “thinking about the whale pits,” when the squid suddenly showed up.
“I was just kind of mesmerized looking at it,” DeVogelaere said.
Videos captured by the crew confirm it is a mesmerizing creature with long pale “legs” trailing from thicker appendages connected to a pale body composed of two fins that undulate languidly in tandem. Little is known about the animals, including what they eat, how they use their tentacles and how they reproduce.
For the researchers on the ship, seeing the creature was a reminder, if they needed one, of how many mysteries the deep still holds.
Pereira, DeVogelaere and the other researchers gathered samples and data that will probably keep them busy for months, and left instruments that will collect data until they return during a future expedition to collect them.
To help figure out if whales were causing the furrows, the scientists gathered water samples that they plan to analyze for environmental DNA, bits of themselves that animals shed while cruising through the ocean, Pereira said. They also left behind hydrophones that will capture sound, which could allow them to identify the specific whale species in the area.
Pereira considers herself profoundly lucky. Years ago, while putting together a video for social media about the bigfin squid, she thought that she would never get to see one. Just three months ago, while on a research vessel in the Atlantic Ocean, she observed two. Now, she has seen three.
“I’ve always been fascinated by deep-sea animals,” Pereira said. “When I heard about the Magnapinna first, I never thought I would be seeing one one day.”
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