At nearly two miles beneath the Pacific, an animal that looks like it was assembled from a pair of wings and a handful of impossibly long strings drifted into an underwater robot’s camera. The giveaway was a set of tiny, sharply bent “elbows” in its dangling arms: a bigfin squid, one of the ocean’s rarest and strangest-looking visitors.
Researchers aboard the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute’s vessel were surveying the seafloor near Davidson Seamount when their remotely operated vehicle, Doc Ricketts, encountered the squid at about 3,277 meters (10,751 feet). MBARI says this is the first confirmed live observation of a bigfin squid in the Northeastern Pacific. Watch MBARI’s original ROV footage and read the research team’s account here.
The encounter is brief, but the creature’s silhouette is unforgettable: fins moving like slow wings, while its threadlike arms and tentacles trail far below. Only about 70 bigfin squid have ever been observed or collected, according to MBARI. This one was estimated at roughly 1.25 meters, or 4.1 feet, from the top of its body to the ends of its arms.
The elbows identify an animal seen only rarely
Bigfin squid belong to the genus Magnapinna. Their most recognizable feature is not simply their length. The arms and tentacles extend outward and then hang at a near right angle, creating the odd, elbowed posture that distinguishes them from the more familiar streamlined squid shape.
MBARI postdoctoral fellow Olívia Soares Pereira said she first noticed what looked like tentacles entering a corner of the video feed. When the little elbows appeared, she recognized the animal and called out its name before the whole squid had even come into view. That moment captures why footage matters: the researchers were not looking at a preserved specimen or a diagram. They were watching a rare animal move in its habitat.
The team used the ROV’s laser measurement system to estimate its size. Its eight arms and two tentacles trailed from a body with two large fins, which it undulated as it hovered above the bottom. The video also gives viewers a sense of scale and movement that still photographs cannot supply.
A sighting two miles below Davidson Seamount
Doc Ricketts was surveying abyssal seafloor near Davidson Seamount, an underwater mountain about 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Monterey, California. The researchers were investigating the seamount’s ecology and studying mysterious furrows in the sediment that may relate to feeding beaked whales.
The bigfin was not the goal of the dive. It emerged from the dark while the team was looking at the seafloor, a reminder that deep-ocean expeditions often collect discoveries that no sampling plan could schedule. The scientists were more than 3,200 meters beneath the surface, in a place where direct observation depends on remotely operated vehicles, lights, cameras and patient work.
MBARI and NOAA collaborators described the animal as the first confirmed bigfin squid sighting in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary as well as the first confirmed live observation in the Northeastern Pacific. MBARI had previously encountered one near Hawaii in 2001; the 2026 sighting is its second encounter with the genus.
Why one short video is scientifically valuable
Bigfin squid remain poorly understood. MBARI notes that scientists have never collected an adult specimen; the animals are known largely through rare observations and damaged juveniles. That makes a clear view of a living squid especially useful. Researchers can study how it holds its body, moves its fins and positions those long appendages.
Some questions remain open. The squid’s diet is unknown, and researchers do not yet know exactly how those long filaments function. Scientists suspect they may help catch prey, as long tentacles do in other deep-sea squids, but that remains a hypothesis. The footage is a glimpse, not a complete account of the animal’s life.
That is part of the payoff. The ROV does not reveal a monster or a new species announcement; it shows a rare creature behaving in the dark, with anatomy so unusual that its small elbow joints gave it away to an expert before the rest of its body appeared.
The deep sea still has room for surprises
Davidson Seamount is already known for deep-sea coral communities and an octopus nursery. The bigfin squid adds another striking encounter to a region scientists continue to explore. Its appearance also shows why the original video is worth seeing: a description can tell you that the animal has long arms, but it cannot quite prepare you for those slow-moving wings and dangling right-angle bends.
For viewers, the best way into the story is the footage itself. MBARI’s source page includes the research team’s account and original ROV video, captured during the expedition. It is a rare chance to watch an animal that most people will never see outside a screen—and to see the exact moment a strange shape in the deep becomes recognizable.
Sources: MBARI, September 2, 2026; MBARI’s bigfin squid field guide.
