"I worry about the impact of that in terms of the entire ecosystem, since it's working its way through the food web. "That's been documented now in several of the trenches and actually, plastic has been found in the stomachs of some of the animals that live down there." "These ultra-deep environments of the trenches … they are a place where trash sort of gathers," he said. 2 Although the family was described only from larval, paralarval, and juvenile specimens, numerous video observations of larger squid with similar morphology are assumed to be adult specimens. They are placed in the genus Magnapinna and family Magnapinnidae. At Churaumi Aquarium, captive breeding took place in 1978. Bigfin squids are a group of rarely seen cephalopods with a distinctive morphology. Though they exist kilometres below the water's surface, Vecchione also says he's concerned about the health of the ecosystems given the amount of pollution in the ocean. The meat of bigfin reef squid is delicious, and is used in Okinawas squid-ink soup (ikasumijiru). "There must be quite a bit of food in order to support these squids down there." "Squid are important predators within the ecosystem that they belong in," Vecchione said. Spotted at a depth of around 4,708 metres, it was the deepest squid ever seen until now. The discovery also means it's likely there are other creatures living nearby.Įxplorer Alan Jamieson found a similar-sized bigfin squid in 2014 in the Pacific Ocean's Kermadec Trench. This young squid is roaming about a kilometre and a half deeper. Previously, the deepest report of a bigfin squid was 4,700 metres below the Kermadec Trench in the Pacific Ocean. That's why the zoologist believes it must have been a juvenile. The squid captured on camera did not have those long extensions, which are more common in adults. But in bigfin squids, the tentacles look very much like the other arms, and all 10 of these appendages have long, spaghetti-like extensions at the tips of them." "But really, the most remarkable thing about it is, squids have eight arms plus two tentacles, which are modified arms. "It's got a really big fin compared to the size of its body," he said. Once he received the footage and still images from the explorers, Vecchione said he could tell instantly from the outline of the creature that it was a bigfin squid. While the squid seen in this video was at 2,385 meters (1.5 miles), the current depth record for a bigfin squid is 4,735 meters (3 miles). (Submitted by Alan Jamieson/Caladan Oceanic) Squid connected to larger ecosystem Bigfin squid are widely distributed throughout the world's deep ocean, and they can live deeper than any other known squid. An image of the young bigfin squid travelling more than 6,000 metres below the surface in the Philippine Sea.
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