“I have been researching deep-sea squids, including the colossal, since the early 2000s, and I can say that this is honestly one of the most exciting observations that we’ve had across the time that I’ve been working on deep-sea cephalopods,” Bolstad said during the news conference. “One of the things I love about this footage is how delicate this animal appears to be. It looks like a glass sculpture. Looking at these animals … thriving and in that delicate state, and then thinking about what it takes for humans to even remotely get to that environment … it’s just a great reminder of how much we have left to learn from nature.”
Bolstad also noted the presence of large rusty red brown chromatophores, or color-changing cells, on the squid’s mantle.
“(That) tells us that it almost certainly can switch back and forth between being completely transparent, which is how we see it, mostly in this footage, to being quite opaque,” Bolstad said. “And it probably has fine control over whether it can do that in certain regions of the body as well, which, again, we would have hypothesized, but we don’t know for sure until we see this animal.”
Bolstad noted that an organization called Colossal captured footage of a glass squid of a similar size in the Antarctic in the organization’s 2023-2024 observing campaign, but the lack of high-resolution footage made it impossible to distinguish which squid species it belonged to because its features weren’t discernible.
Bolstad clarified that the colossal squid is not the same as the giant squid. While the colossal squid lives exclusively in the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic regions, the giant squid is found in other oceans of the world.
Treasure in Antarctica
During a separate expedition near Antarctica in January, Dr. Thom Linley was on board as the team examined the seafloor after a Chicago-size iceberg broke away from the George VI Ice Shelf.
Linley, curator of fishes at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, was in the ship’s control room as the Falkor (too) deployed a remotely operated vehicle through the depths of the Bellingshausen Sea when he saw something intriguing as SuBastian reached 2,254 feet (687 meters).
A glass squid floated into view, and Linley asked if the vehicle could pause during descent to capture footage.
“I know it’s a cute little squid, but this might be important,” Linley recalled saying. He shared the high-resolution footage with Bolstad. Evans was also brought in to review the imagery.
The juvenile colossal squid and the glacial glass squid, called Galiteuthis glacialis, appear similar, with both having hooks at the end of their two longer tentacles and transparent bodies.
But this particular glass squid observed during the descent held its arms loosely above its head in a maneuver called a cockatoo pose, which has been observed previously in glass squids.
Together, Bolstad and Evans were able to confirm that they were seeing a glacial glass squid in its frigid, deep environment for the first time.
Searching for adult colossal squid
Neither of the squid observed in the footage disappear or appear alarmed by presence of the remotely operated vehicle. Instead, they appear to hold their positions calmly, assessing if the vehicle is a threat.
But an adult colossal squid remains elusive, using its sensitive vision to avoid anything that may pose a risk.
“From their perspective, any time something large is coming forward, it’s not a good thing,” Evans said. “The adult colossal squid remains mysterious and enigmatic because it has these senses, which allow it to see us. The colossal squid is limited to Antarctica, where we don’t get the opportunity to research quite as frequently. So, it’s going to take us a bit longer for us to have that chance encounter where we get it on film.”
The research vessel won’t be returning to Antarctica until 2028, but it will be operating in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coasts of Argentina and Uruguay over the next four years, the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s Virmani said. The vehicle’s dives are streamed live on the institute’s YouTube channel so anyone can follow along with its expeditions to the deep, she said.
“Now that we have the ability to share (dives) in real time in this way and show people how beautiful the things are, how many things remain to be discovered, and that people can come along with us as we make these discoveries, I feel like our ability to appreciate the deep sea on a much wider scale is moving towards where it should have been all along,” Bolstad said.
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