Giant Eyes And Hooked Tentacles: Meet The Colossal Squid

New Zealand scientists at Te Papa museum dissected an almost 800-pound colossal squid on Sept. 16. This was the second of these giants ever to be found intact. Both were dragged out of the Ross Sea, off the freezing coast of Antarctica.

Colossal squid, with their eight arms and two tentacles, both covered in fearsome rotating hooks, are the largest tentacled creatures in the ocean as measured by weight. The first one ever found, in 2007, weighed in at almost 1,100 pounds.

Giant squid are frequently cited as being longer - an 1887 scientific paper claimed they measured one at 55 feet long - but it's unclear if those measurements are accurate. And with so few colossal specimens ever examined and the variations and changes in body size that occur after death, researchers say they would need to examine many more colossal squid to really understand how large they can grow.