New “mystery” 6 foot squid discovered
Operation Deep Scope has discovered a new species of large squid in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Using a bioluminescent electronic “jellyfish” as bait the expedition captured some incredible video using their “one-of-a-kind” Eye-in-the-Sea technology.
From wftv news Florida:
The identity of the mystery squid, bigger than calamari but smaller than the fabled giant squid, remains a puzzle.
Cephalopod biologist Michael Vecchione of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., wrote in an e-mail to Widder that he was unable to identify it after viewing the seven-second video and consulting with other experts. It has body and tentacle characteristics different from any known squids, Widder said.
“The thing to appreciate is something this large to be totally unknown is phenomenal and just such an obvious indication of how little we understand about what’s in our oceans,” she said.
This story has also been reported on Orbis Quintus. However this report has a small error: only the bait is bioluminescent, not the squid itself.
Of course, there is also a discussion of this find on TONMO. Here TONMO Squid god Steve O’Shea resoundingly disses the theory that this squid is a Mastigoteuthis (the Deep Scope suggestion). Instead he suggests that it is a gonatid squid (Family Gonatidae):
In Gonatus the tentacles are apparently lost at reproduction; in Gonatopsis they are present only in larval stages. I’ve seen video of Gonatus with the egg mass attached to the arms (as in the female broods the mass). As such is is unlikely that the specimen we see in this film is tending an egg mass attached to the sea bed (with the fish simply being there out of coincidence). Most all other families of squid can be eliminated for one reason or another.
In short, likely Gonatus or Gonatopsis, predating fish, disturbed and adandoned pursuit. Definitely not mastigoteuthid!
[Although the discovery was last August it was only recently reported in Florida news]