Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of iHeart Radio. Hey brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren bog Obam here. The giant squid is a carnivorous
Speaker 1: invertebrate that weighs over four hundred and forty pounds or
Speaker 1: two and measures around thirty three ft or ten meters long. Yes,
Speaker 1: it can be as long as a school bus and
Speaker 1: has eyes the size of dinner plates, along with a
Speaker 1: sharp beak. In short, it's a little disconcerting. Perhaps more
Speaker 1: disconcerting is the fact that these wild creatures, which have
Speaker 1: rarely ever been spotted alive, have been popping up in
Speaker 1: videos in recent years, very much alive and very very large.
Speaker 1: Before two thousand four, they had only been found as carcasses,
Speaker 1: washed up on beaches or captured by fishermen. So what's
Speaker 1: going on under the sea is a rash of giant
Speaker 1: squid sightings and indication that these sea giants are taking
Speaker 1: over the waves. In a word, no, but the sightings
Speaker 1: do indicate technology is advancing in exciting new ways. We
Speaker 1: spoke Edith Whittard, PhD uh, the CEO and Senior scientist
Speaker 1: of Florida's Ocean Research and Conservation Association, Incorporated. She said
Speaker 1: it hasn't really been a rash of giant squid sightings.
Speaker 1: There have only been two times that giant squid have
Speaker 1: been filmed in the deep sea. Both times the animals
Speaker 1: were spotted with help from a camera system and an
Speaker 1: optical lure that wid are developed to help researchers explore
Speaker 1: the creatures of the deep sea without scaring them away.
Speaker 1: The camera system is called Medusa. Medusa is unlike any
Speaker 1: recording device used before because it emits a red light
Speaker 1: that's invisible to most creatures living in the midnight zone.
Speaker 1: That's the expanse of pitch black water about three thousand,
Speaker 1: three hundred feet or a thousand meters below the ocean surface.
Speaker 1: Then there's the optical lure and electronic jellyfish that accompanies
Speaker 1: Medusa down below the waves to help draw creatures towards
Speaker 1: the camera with an innovative method that takes inspiration from
Speaker 1: animals natural cues called an e jelly wid are explained.
Speaker 1: The e jelly image hates the bioluminescent burglar alarm display
Speaker 1: of a common deep sea jellyfish. Bioluminescent burglar alarms are
Speaker 1: like a scream for help using light. Their last ditch
Speaker 1: effort of prey that are caught in the clutches of
Speaker 1: a predator to attract the attention of a bigger predator
Speaker 1: that may attack their attacker and thereby afford them an
Speaker 1: opportunity for escape. Until just fifteen years ago, the only
Speaker 1: facts known about giants squid were gathered from their massive
Speaker 1: dead bodies, since live ones had never been seen. Then,
Speaker 1: in two thousand four, the first live images of a
Speaker 1: giant squid were captured, and the first video of a
Speaker 1: giant squid emerged thanks to Medusa capturing a specimen swimming
Speaker 1: off of Japan's Okasawara Archipelago. It wasn't until June of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen that another Medusa shot giant squid video came
Speaker 1: to light, this time of a roughly ten foot long
Speaker 1: that's three meters young swimmer in US waters around the
Speaker 1: e Gulf of Mexico. June twenty nineteen marked the fifth
Speaker 1: deployment of Medusa on this particular expedition, and when Winter
Speaker 1: and her team examined the video, they saw undeniable footage
Speaker 1: of a long, tentacled creature reaching out for the e jelly.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell exactly how big it was because
Speaker 1: it was heading straight towards the camera. All these years
Speaker 1: of underwater chasing begs the question why are these animals
Speaker 1: so camera shy in the first place? Witter said, the
Speaker 1: giant squid has been elusive because our standard methods of exploration,
Speaker 1: using platforms with bright lights and noisy thrusters, has been
Speaker 1: scaring it away. The only reason we even knew giant
Speaker 1: squid existed is because they happen to float when they die.
Speaker 1: So dead and dying specimens have been seen in photographed
Speaker 1: at the surface. How many other animals are there living
Speaker 1: in the deep sea that we don't know about because
Speaker 1: we've been scaring them away and they don't happen to
Speaker 1: float when they die, A good and perhaps even more
Speaker 1: disconcerting question. Indeed. Today's episode was written by Michelle Constantonowsky
Speaker 1: and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain Stuff is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more in
Speaker 1: this and lots of other mysterious topics, visit our home
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