Giant Squid Found In Spain; 400-Pound, 30-Foot-Long Creature Has Massive Eyes
It is not an every day occurrence to come across a massive, 400-pound, 30-foot-long squid on the coast.
That's exactly what happened in the Spanish Community of Cantabria earlier this week. The giant squid has since been transferred to the Maritime Museum of Cantabria, but not before a photo was taken. The squid's massive eyes appear to be almost as large as a human hand. According to the University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology, the species' eyes are the biggest in the entire Animal Kingdom. At times, the eyes can reportedly be as large as a human's head at times 10 inches in diameter.
According to NBC News, the squid is part of the Architeuthis dux species, which is known as the largest invertebrate species on the planet.
People from Japan's National Science Museum in Tokyo, Japan captured some footage of one of these squids in its natural habitat in 2012. Tsunemi Kubodera, a zoologist, said the squid was found about 620 miles south of Tokyo and it was more than 2,000 feet underwater. This is likely to be not far from the Mariana Trench, which is the area of the world's ocean where it is known to be the deepest. The Mariana Trench is nearly 7 miles deep. This may be an explanation for why the eyes are so large; NBC News says that the larger eyes may help to see in the deeper waters where there is not as much light.
"It was shining and so beautiful," Kubodera, had said at the time. "I was so thrilled when I saw it first hand, but I was confident we would because we rigorously researched the areas we might find it, based on past data."