For the first time since the species was discovered a century ago, a live colossal squid has been caught on video in its natural habitat. The footage was captured by a remotely operated vehicle called the ROV dubbed SuBastian near the South Sandwich Islands on March 9, 2025, and the discovery came as quite a shock to the researchers monitoring the live feed. The ROV was 1,968 feet below the surface of the water when a young squid swam across its path, a sight that researchers called “beautiful and unusual.”
The colossal squid ( Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni ) was first identified in 1925 when two arm crowns were found in a sperm whale’s stomach near the Falkland Islands. British zoologist Guy Coburn Robson examined the remains and formally described the species, naming it after E. Hamilton who made the initial discovery.
For decades, any knowledge about the colossal squid was limited to similar fragments. It wasn’t until 1981 that a complete specimen was recovered, and later in 2003, researchers found a 17.7 foot subadult female weighing around 661 pounds.
In 2007, the largest known specimen, weighing around 1,091 pounds, was captured and is now displayed at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.
However, in all that time, the colossal squid managed to remain largely elusive. Researchers had never observed the species in its natural deep sea habitat, and even now, they hadn’t expected to.
Yet last month, a team of international researchers and crew on board the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s RV Falkor ( an oceanographic research vessel ) used the ROV SuBastian to capture live footage of the deep ocean.
“It’s exciting to see the first in situ footage of a juvenile colossal and humbling exist,” said Dr. Kat Bolstad, a cephalopod biologist at the Auckland University of Technology, in a press release. “For 100 years, we have mainly encountered them as prey remains in whale and seabird stomachs and as predators of harvested toothfish,” Bolstad continued.
Even more remarkably, just two months prior, on January 25, 2025, a previous team on the Falkor had also captured the first confirmed footage of another elusive squid, the glacial glass squid ( Galiteuthis glacialis ) in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, yet another species that had never been seen alive in its natural environment.
“The first sighting of two different squids on back to back expeditions is remarkable and shows how little we have seen of the magnificent inhabitants of the Southern Ocean,” said Schmidt Ocean Institute’s executive director, Dr Jyotika Virmani. “These unforgettable moments continue to remind us that the ocean is brimming with mysteries yet to be solved,” said Virmani.
