Elusive giant squid photographed

From San Francisco Chronicle:

Squid For decades, scientists and sea explorers have mounted costly expeditions to hunt down and photograph the giant squid, a legendary monster with eyes the size of dinner plates and a nightmarish tangle of tentacles lined with long rows of sucker pads. The goal has been to learn more about a bizarre creature of no little fame — Jules Verne’s attacked a submarine, and Peter Benchley’s ate children — that in real life has stubbornly refused to give up its secrets.

While giant squid have been snagged in fishing nets, and dead or dying ones have washed ashore, expeditions have repeatedly failed to photograph a live one in its natural habitat, the inky depths of the sea. But two Japanese scientists, Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori, report today in a leading British biological journal that they have made the world’s first observations of a giant squid in the wild. (Picture from MSNBC).

More here.