Nature & Environment

Incredible alien-like deep-sea creature filmed in the Tonga Trench

By T.K. Randall
October 1, 2024 ·  1 comment

The creature was filmed over 3,000ft beneath the sea. Image Credit: YouTube / Magnapinna Archive The clip, which comes courtesy of the Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Center, was filmed during a recent expedition to the depths of the Tonga Trench in the South Pacific Ocean.

At first, there doesn't seem to be anything there, but then, a strange shape begins to emerge from the gloom - a cephalopod with 13ft tentacles which act almost like legs as it moves through the water.The species - the bigfin squid - is the deepest-dwelling of its kind known to science and this particular example was filmed approximately 3,300ft beneath the surface of the sea.

There is certainly something otherworldly about the way it emerges from the gloom and glides across the seabed - almost like a ghost or something out of a War of the Worlds movie.

"We always hope to see this type of animal," Prof Alan Jamieson told Live Science.

"[Bigfin squid] are not something you would actively go looking for, they are a species that relies on us coming across them by accident."

You can check out the footage for yourself below.


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Tags: Squid, Ocean