http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2008/12/01/1_magnapinna_461_narrowweb__300x194,0.jpgFloating more than two kilometres below the surface, this alien-like creature seems more like a monster straight out of 1950s science fiction than a rare inhabitant of the sea.
An email with
http://media.smh.com.au/?rid=44160&sy=smh&source=smh.com.au%2Fnews%2Fenvironment%2Fsydney-scientists-crack-deepsea-mystery--a-hrefhttpmediafairfaxcomaurid44160bvideoba%2F2008%2F12%2F01%2F1227979881462.html">25 seconds of jerky footage of the creature under the subject title "What is it?" spent a year circulating the globe before landing in the inbox of an Australian marine biologist last week.
The Sydney researcher, Adele Pile, and one of her students Dan Jones were able to help solve the mystery by identifying it as a rare magnapinna, or "big fin", squid.
This rare glimpse of the "elbowed" magnapinna squid was captured by a remote control submersible camera at one of the world's deepest drilling sites in the Gulf of Mexico, more than 300 kilometres off the coast of Houston, Texas.
A report on the National Geographic News website last week said it was filmed by the Shell oil company in November last year.
The eerie deep-sea footage shows the squid's huge fins rippling while its curious tentacles hang down from elbow-like appendages.
Even though remotely operated vehicles have filmed the magnapinna squid more than a dozen times in the Gulf and the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans, the species remains largely a mystery to science.
More:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/sydney-scientists-crack-deepsea-mystery--a-hrefhttpmediafairfaxcomaurid44160bvideoba/2008/12/01/1227979881462.html
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