Giant Squid Filmed in North Pacific Ocean

For the first time, Japanese scientists have captured on film the images of a giant squid, the world's largest invertebrate, in the North Pacific Ocean.

The deep-sea creature, which is up to 26 feet long, was successfully filmed in its natural habitat by Japan's National Science Museum along with Japanese public broadcaster NHK and the U.S. Discovery Channel, reports Agence France-Presse news agency.

A three-man crew used a submersible to track the elusive giant squid, called architeuthis, at greater depths in the North Pacific Ocean.

After spending 400 hours and carrying out 100 missions, museum researcher Tsunemi Kubodera and his team filmed a squid about 10 feet long at a depth of 630 meters near Ogasawara islands and followed it up to a depth of 900 meters into the ocean, in July 2012.

The footage was released by NHK and Discovery channel Monday (Jan. 7, 2013) in Tokyo. The image showed that the silver-colored squid had huge black eyes and was holding bait in its arms.

"It was shining and so beautiful," Kubodera, a squid specialist, told AFP. "I was so thrilled when I saw it first hand, but I was confident we would because we rigorously researched the areas we might find it, based on past data."

Kubodera said that the squid was missing two of its longest arms. If the squid had possessed its arms, it would have been 26 feet long (eight meters), he said. It is not known as to how the squid lost its arms. 

Click here to take a look at the footage of the giant squid captured in Japan.