This Elusive Antarctic Squid Was Seen for the First Time

An expedition in the Southern Ocean captured video of a rare species of deep-sea cephalopod.
Alexa Robles-Gil

From the New York Times, National Geographic, Good Morning America


On Christmas Day last year, during a National Geographic and Rolex Perpetual Planet expedition in Antarctica, the crew of the R/V Falkor (Too), the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel, captured a live video of the squid Gonatus antarcticus for the first time alive in the wild. 

“It was a beautiful squid,” said Andrew Thurber, a deep-sea researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who was aboard the vessel. “You see beauty all the time in the deep ocean, and this was just one classic example of it.”


More about the discovery on the National Geographic article We've never seen this rare squid alive in the wild—until now by Melissa Hobson

Andrew Thurber

Andrew Thurber

Associate Professor
Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology
Principal Investigator at the Marine Science Institute
University of California, Santa Barbara
National Geographic Explorer

Dr. Andrew Thurber studies ecosystem function of deep sea and polar habitats. Much of his research focuses on the biological processes that limit the release of the greenhouse gas methane while also simultaneously fueling marine food webs.

MSI Principal Investigators