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Discovery Channel, who I will largely remember for their awful "docu-fiction" titled ' >Mermaids: A Body Found ', put out a press release on December 10 claiming they'd caught the Giant Squid on video - a first in natural-history filmmaking.
The giant squid ( Architeuthis dux ) hasn't been videotaped "until now" - as Discovery's statement ominously declares. Dwelling at a depth of almost 30,000 feet, the magnificent creature has remained elusive from innumerable pursuits to spot it, study it, and understand it better. In fact, the first photographs of the creature were reported only in 2005 by Tsunemi Kubodera of the National Science Museum in Tokyo and Kyoichi Mori from the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association ( >full paper available for free here ).
- Images from Mori's and Kubodera's 2005 paper
Discovery claims it will air the footage on January 27, 2013, on the premier of a show titled ' Monster Squid: The Giant is Real '. Yes, the title reeks of desperation. Given the amount of interest - both scientific and otherwise - in the great creature, Discovery could've called it "Giant squid on cam" and people would still have flocked to it. As for the "Giant is Real" bit: It completely ignores, rather discredits, the hundreds of papers published and specimens documented on the subject.
It is speculated that >noted giant-squid-hunter Steve O'Shea was involved in the project, as was Kubodera. NHK will also air the prized footage in early January, 2013.
