杏吧原创

In the first footage of its kind, researchers have filmed a giant squid stalking an electronic decoy jellyfish (E-Jelly) before striking it with lightning-quick speed. The video suggests that giant squid survive deep under the surface by being efficient hunters rather than waiting in ambush for opportunities to pass them.

鈥淚t comes right in, shoots its arms out [and] wraps its arms around the E-Jelly,鈥� says Nathan Robinson at the Oceanographic Foundation in Valencia, Spain.

It appears that giant squid (Architeuthis dux) patrol the waters in search of prey, deep in the so-called twilight zone. They are also famously elusive, and the E-Jelly is part of an elaborate device designed specifically to capture footage of them.

These squid have eyes the size of dinner plates, says Robinson, and they are very sensitive to the lights that humans typically use when descending into deep water.

But Robinson鈥檚 colleague at the Ocean Research & Conservation Association in Florida and her team developed a device that uses red light, which the squid can鈥檛 see as well, to illuminate the field in the camera. The E-Jelly looks like a drink coaster with coloured lights around the edge that mimic those of bioluminescent jellyfish that the squid can see. It acts as bait for squid that prey on these jellies, sitting right in front of a camera.

The team took the set-up to waters about 160 kilometres south of Mobile, Alabama, capturing the first known footage of giant squid in the Gulf of Mexico in June 2019.

Giant squid can be up to 14 metres long, though this individual was only about 6 metres long including its tentacles and arms. Previously, researchers believed these giants hunted by ambush to conserve energy in the relatively barren depths of the twilight zone between 400 metres and 1000 metres in depth. But this video shows the squid actively stalking and striking at its presumed prey, the E-Jelly.

The discovery suggests that giant squid survive deep under the surface by being efficient hunters rather than waiting in ambush for opportunities to pass them.

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