New Squid spied in the deep

Congratulations to P.Z. Myers on winning the meaningless weblog award for best science blog. I have to confess that I was a bit torn. Pharyngula is the first blog I check every day. However, I've been reading Phil since the days of his old Yahoo listserve.

Anyhoo, as a tribute to the winner, I bring you a new species of giant squid. Here's a description of the "far red" camera and lure that was used to snag the shots.

The Eye-in-the-Sea (EITS) was designed to address these questions. The autonomous EITS is a programmable, battery-powered camera and recording system that can be placed on the sea floor and left for 24 to 48 hours to observe the animal life in the dark depths with as little disturbance as possible. It uses far red light illumination that is invisible to most deep-sea inhabitants and an innovative electronic lure that imitates the bioluminescent burglar alarm display of a common deep-sea jellyfish.

The very first time this lure was used it attracted a large squid that is so new to science it can not be placed in any known family.

Just follow this link to see the video of the depth dwelling cephalopod. (via New York Times)