Terrifying video shows moment camera is attacked by rare deep-sea squid with 'headlights'
Chilling footage has been released of the moment where an underwater camera was gripped by a deep-sea creature.
It's things like this that make people scared of the sea, and it's worth noting that we as humans have only explored five percent of the world ocean, according to NOAA Ocean Exploration.
To think about how many creepy and scary creatures live in the depths of the sea, and the fact that there's a high possibility that there are even more that we don't know about - which scientists might not ever discover.
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People are already scared by clips just a few metres below sea level, revealing how fish react to seeing a camera, or in some cases, bits of food.
The latest bit of breath-taking footage has been released by scientists from the University of Western Australia and Kelpie Geosciences in the UK, that has left viewers stunned.
In a clip that rivals a sub's interaction with an ancient deep-sea creature up close, where scientists could see its eye, this ranks highly among creepy-yet-educational ocean exploration videos.
It is said that creature mistook the camera for prey in the South Pacific on Wednesday 8 May, with Associate Professor Stewart stating: “As we were reviewing the footage, we realised we had captured something very rare.”
In the video, a rare squid can be seen wrapping its arms around a camera 1026m below the surface, where it is almost pitch black.
It's not just any rare squid though, known as the Taningia Danae, it can be seen making its approach towards the camera and spreading its tentacles over the camera lens, seemingly thinking that it was something that it could eat.
The species is known for having two incredibly large photophores on the end of two of its tentacles that produce bioluminescence, which have also been described as 'headlights'.
They are the largest known photophores in the known world, and are also known to produce flashes in the dark ocean to disorientate prey while hunting, which can also be seen in the video.
The equipment captured two angles of the squid wrapping its tentacles around the lens, one from the scene and one from behind, showcasing just how massive the squid is.
Also known as the Dana octopus squid, it is one of the largest known squid species, able to reach a total length of 2.3m. The largest known specimen weighed a whopping 161.4kg.
Joshua Nair