A giant squid washed up on a Spanish beach in Cantabria earlier this week and was photographed, according to local reports.
Spanish newspaper El Diario Montanes reported that the squid, which was found at La Arena beach, measured at around 30 feet in length–with tentacles extended–and weighed some 400 pounds. The paper said the squid is a member of the Architeuthis dux species.
Architeuthis dux are the largest invertebrates in the world but are rarely seen as they swim at depths of 1,000 to 3,000 feet.
The squid has been sent to the Maritime Museum of Cantabria, reported The Olive Press. Scientists will have to decide on whether to display or dissect the animal.
Gerardo Garcia Castillo, the head of the museum, told Merco Press: “Dimensions which inspire respect, close to a record but still short of other stranded cephalopods washed ashore in other parts of the Cantabrian Sea.”
“The animal died at sea and ocean currents brought it to the coast,” Talledo said, according to GrindTV. “The squid was in good condition except one [tentacle] had been broken.”
In 2012, as LiveScience points out, Tsunemi Kubodera of the Japan’s National Science Museum in Tokyo captured the first live footage of a giant squid in its natural, deep-sea habitat.
