Eyes like dinner plates
Its eyes are up to 27 centimetres across, among the largest of any animal, to catch the faintest glimmer of light.
The deep sea
Giant squid
Architeuthis dux
A huge, red squid with eight arms, two very long feeding tentacles and enormous eyes.
- Size
- Up to 12 or 13m long, including the tentacles
- Look for it
- All year round
- Where
- Deep water in every ocean
Jets after you, tentacles trailing. Move your pointer and see.
When to look
Giant squid
Good to know
Six things about the giant squid
First filmed in 2012
Nobody filmed a living giant squid in the deep until 2012.
Battles with whales
Sperm whales eat giant squid. Many whales carry round scars from the squid's toothed suckers.
The kraken
Old sailors' tales of the kraken, a monster that dragged ships under, probably began with giant squid.
A parrot's beak
In the middle of its arms is a hard beak, like a parrot's, for slicing up its catch.
Not the heaviest
The colossal squid of the Antarctic is shorter but heavier still.
The real thing
Photos of the giant squid
Photos are from Wikimedia Commons, used under the free licences shown. They have been resized, and cropped where they appear in link previews.
How to spot one
Almost all we know comes from squid washed ashore or found in whales' stomachs. A preserved one, called Archie, is kept at the Natural History Museum in London.
How to help
We know too little about giant squid to say how they are doing, which is a reason to treat the deep sea with care.
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