Colossal Squid

• GeneralIt has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, at 27 cm across.
• récordIt is the largest invertebrate known, and its eyes can be up to 30 centimetres across, the largest recorded anywhere in the animal kingdom.
• It is the heaviest invertebrate on the planet: the largest individual ever weighed was an adult female of 495 kg caught in the Ross Sea in 2007.
• It has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, some 25 to 27 cm across, adapted to the gloom of deep Antarctic water.
• Unlike the giant squid, which has suckers with toothed rings, its tentacles carry swivelling hooks, twenty-five in two rows on each tentacular club.
• It was identified in 1925 from two arms recovered from a sperm whale's stomach. For a century almost everything known about it came from remains in the stomachs of whales and birds, and from individuals tangled in fishing gear.
• In March 2025, exactly a century after it was described, one was filmed alive in its own environment for the first time: a transparent 30 cm juvenile, at 600 m depth, near the South Sandwich Islands.
• It floats effortlessly thanks to low-density ammonium-rich tissues, typical of the glass squids.

Skeleton type

Invertebrate - internal chitinous pen (gladius)

Habitat and environment

Deep Antarctic water (1,000-2,200 m)

Sources consulted: Wikipedia (es): Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni · Anatomia de Cephalopoda · Wikipedia (Cuttlebone, Gladius) · FAO, terminos tecnicos de cefalopodos

The pins mark the parks where its presence is documented.