Rare Blood-Red Squid Seen Alive For The First Time Off Antarctica
Researchers have filmed a rare species of deep-sea squid off Antarctica that has been seen alive for the first time, announced National Geographic. The Antarctic gonate squid (Gonatus antarcticus) was captured moving 7,060 feet below the surface in the ocean's midnight zone. The three-foot-long squid was captured on December 25, 2024.
The team of scientists and technical experts onboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's ship RV Falkor (too) spotted the blood-red creature.
Manuel Novillo, a postdoctoral researcher at Instituto de Diversidad y Ecologia Animal who was aboard the ship, said, as quoted in the report, "It was our mission critical."
They were planning to take the remotely operated vehicle (ROV) to the Powell Basin, which is an unexplored abyssal plain that plummets to around 9,800 feet deep.
However, they had to postpone the launch because of the sea ice. Novillo said, "The ice blocks were moving so fast, it would put all the ships in danger, so we had to rearrange everything."
Hence, the researchers chose a new site at the outer edge of the Powell Basin for the next day when they witnessed a squid that had "never been seen alive".
Behold the first ever recording of a deep-sea squid: The Gonatus antarcticus!
For more on this story, visit: https://t.co/Mu4urHE7XU pic.twitter.com/XywgbTBC2L
— USA TODAY Video (@usatodayvideo) June 10, 2025
Gonatus antarcticus, an elusive cephalopod found only in the frigid waters around Antarctica, the report said.
Novillo's team sent the footage to Kat Bolstad, who is the head of the Lab for Cephalopod Ecology and Systematics at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.
She confirmed it was an Antarctic gonate squid.
"This is, to the best of my knowledge, the first live footage of this animal worldwide," she says.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
NDTV
2 days ago
- NDTV
New Method For Writing And Preserving Messages On Ice Discovered: Research
The extremely low temperatures in the icy Arctic and Antarctic areas often limit devices that require a lot of energy, making communication difficult. Scientists from China, Korea, and the Czech Republic have discovered a new method for writing and preserving messages: making patterns of air bubbles trapped in ice sheets. A study, published in Cell Reports Physical Science, describes how the Beijing Institute of Technology researchers used the mechanics of bubble formation to encode brief messages in ice. Their method is based on controlling the size, shape, and placement of air bubbles that occur when water freezes naturally. This unconventional technique uses ice-trapped air bubbles to create different bubble forms that can be used to encode messages in binary or Morse code, per the New York Times. The concept of bubble messages was inspired by the air bubbles that naturally develop in glaciers. The researchers looked into the dispersion of bubbles in ice to find a simple method of communicating and storing information for extended periods of time. Tiny air pockets, or bubbles, are created inside the ice when water freezes, because it forces out dissolved gases. The researchers employed a unique arrangement, placing a tiny layer of water on a chilly plate between two sheets of transparent plastic. It was discovered that they could produce particular bubble patterns, each of which represented a portion of a coded message, by carefully regulating the freezing process. Several layers were produced, some with and some without bubbles, by varying the freezing speed. The properties of each layer became the fundamental units of communication. Clear ice looks dark, whereas bubbly areas appear white due to the way air bubbles scatter light. The hidden message is revealed when a computer software analyses the image, finds the bubble patterns, and converts them back into binary or Morse code. Author Mengjie Song stated that using trapped air bubbles to convey and store messages is more secret than using paper documents and requires less energy than telecommunication in naturally cold areas. "These ice messages can be preserved for a long time, and the messages they carry are easy to visualise and read," Song added. The researchers agreed that much more work needs to be performed to make such applications possible. The group intends to further study bubble creation in three-dimensional environments and look into how gas type and concentration affect bubble ice properties.
NDTV
5 days ago
- NDTV
What Ancient Ice Sheets Can Tell Us About Future Sea Level Rise
When visiting Godrevy beach on the north Cornish coast, most people look out to sea at the lighthouse, surfers and seals rather than the cliffs behind. But these cliffs hold a history of past climate and sea level that is incredibly valuable to scientists like me who are trying to determine how quickly sea level is going to rise in the future. Scramble up the slate rocks a few metres and you'll reach a flat platform cut by waves breaking over 100,000 years ago. On top, there's a cliff of sand and pebbles, an incredibly clear indicator of where the shoreline used to be, several metres higher than it is today. Beaches like this exist all around the Cornish coastline, near Falmouth at Bream Cove and at the furthest western point near Lands End at Porth Nanven. Searching for the source of these higher sea levels takes us to the poles. In a climate similar to today, the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets retreated, raising global sea level. Although exactly where this ice was lost from remains a mystery that continues to frustrate scientists. When ice gets trapped on land as giant ice sheets, it causes the sea level to change, but it doesn't change by the same amount all around the planet. Like the moon, the gravity of the ice sheets pulls the ocean towards them, causing sea levels to rise near to the ice sheets. The opposite happens when they melt. As the ice on Greenland retreats today, it's causing the sea level nearby to fall, rather than rise. Only as far as Scotland, some 1,500 miles from Greenland, does this sea level fall switch to a sea level rise. This gravity effect leaves behind a distinctive fingerprint in past sea level markers, such as raised beaches and fossil coral reefs. By piecing together data from around the world we can work out the source of past high sea levels. The raised beaches such as those in north Cornwall are probably caused by the retreat of ice from Antarctica, rather than the ice from Greenland. But direct evidence for ice loss from Antarctica has proven very hard to come by. I'm involved with an international drilling project that aims to solve this mystery. Following two challenging seasons of drilling, our team of scientists and engineers will return to Antarctica in late 2025 and attempt to recover sediments from deep underneath the ice, to analyse for signals of past ice retreat. If we're lucky, we'll recover records from warm climates millions of years ago. This will help us understand how the west Antarctic ice sheet may change in the future as our climate continues to warm. Drilling Down Next winter, this international team is travelling to Scott Base, a New Zealand research station at the edge of the Ross ice shelf in west Antarctica. From there, the journey continues over 500 miles to the other end of the ice shelf, an extremely remote corner of an already remote continent. Everything we need is taken across the ice in a convoy of tracked snow vehicles. A hot water drill is used to make a small hole through the 500m ice shelf, providing access to the sediment below. Up to 200m of valuable sediment core will be retrieved with a custom-designed drilling system. The geological data contained in these sediments will help us to improve models and refine our predictions of how sea level will rise in the future. As the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increases, it is as if we are rapidly moving backwards through geological time. Today, there is as much CO₂ in the atmosphere as during a geological epoch known as the mid-Pliocene, more than 3 million years ago. The average estimate for the mid-Pliocene is a concentration of around 400 parts per million (ppm), a value we reached only 12 years ago. We'll exceed the highest concentrations of the Pliocene this year. The next warmest interval is probably the mid-Miocene, 12 million years earlier. Back in Cornwall, some communities are already planning for the effects of sea level rise. In Bude, local people have come together to form a 'climate jury', a panel chosen to give local people a voice as to how to best manage and reduce the impacts of a rising sea. This approach could be adopted by other communities at risk from sea level rise, alongside other adaptations. Hopefully, the world can avoid a return to the very high sea levels that formed the raised beaches at Godrevy. (Disclosure Statement: Ed Gasson receives funding from The Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council.)
Indian Express
6 days ago
- Indian Express
How do woodpeckers not get a concussion after all that pecking?
Ever watched a woodpecker go at a tree like it owes them money and wondered: How on earth does its head not explode? It's a fair question—after all, they can peck up to 20 times per second, delivering impact forces of up to 1,200 times the force of gravity (g). That's more than what astronauts experience during liftoff! But here's the twist: woodpeckers don't get headaches. They don't suffer from concussions. And they don't need tiny woodpecker-sized helmets. Their secret? A brilliant combination of evolution, anatomy—and yes, their tongue, which wraps around their entire head like nature's built-in shock absorber. According to certain scientists, woodpeckers have super-strong but flexible skulls that help spread the impact forces evenly. Unlike humans, whose brains 'float' in fluid (and can jostle during a hit), woodpeckers have tightly packed brains with minimal movement. Their spongy bone structure, particularly around the forehead and back of the skull, acts like a shock-absorbing layer. The BBC and National Geographic explain that their beaks and skulls are perfectly designed to dissipate energy from each peck, so the shock doesn't reach the brain. It's like a natural cushion system built right into their face. However, this has recently been contested by a 2022 study published in Current Journal that posits the woodpecker's brain is so small and by its virtue doesn't need protection like a human brain would. 'An animal that has a smaller size can withstand higher decelerations,' Sam Van Wassenbergh, lead author of the study, told NPR. 'That's a biomechanical law.' Here's the truly mind-blowing part. A woodpecker's tongue isn't just long—it's incredibly long. In some species, like the Northern Flicker, the tongue can be up to three times the length of its beak, according to the American Bird Conservancy. But what makes it special is how it wraps around the back of the skull, over the top of the head, and even around the eyes in some cases, basically forming a loop inside the head. But the tongue's acrobatics aren't just about storage. That unique wraparound design also acts like natural padding. According to a team of Chinese scientists who studied woodpeckers in slow motion using high-speed 3D cameras, the tongue helps absorb shock — offering some protection to the brain during all that intense pecking, basically acting like a seatbelt. The surrounding tissues provide extra support, reducing vibrations and stress. So, every time a woodpecker hammers into wood, that wrapped tongue helps to brace the brain in place. It doesn't stop at the tongue. The woodpecker's beak is also specially adapted. The outer layer is hard, but the inner core is more elastic—helping to absorb some of the force before it travels any further. Think of it like built-in padding. Some researchers have even suggested that the slightly uneven lengths of the upper and lower beak might help distribute pressure better. Scientists have studied woodpecker anatomy to help design better helmets, car safety systems, and even black boxes in airplanes. Nature has fine-tuned this bird for a very specific task: pounding on trees all day without losing its mind—literally. So the next time you hear a woodpecker knocking away, just know: it's not just drilling for bugs. It's showing off millions of years of evolutionary genius—and that ridiculously long tongue is doing a lot more than you might expect.
