Cuteness overload: Watch this googly-eyed squid which is already being called a 'cuddlefish'
It's new and it's beautiful.
What’s purple, tentacled and has googly eyes?
That question stumped the scientists watching the cute creature seen in the video above. It looks a bit like an octopus, but is, in fact, a stubby squid (Rossia Pacifica), closely related to cuttlefish. “This species spends life on the seafloor, activating a sticky mucus jacket and burrowing into the sediment to camouflage, leaving their eyes poking out to spot prey like shrimp and small fish,” says the text accompanying the video from deep sea exploration vessel E/V Nautilus.
Stubby squids are found in the “Northern Pacific from Japan to Southern California, most commonly seen up to 300 m deep, but specimens have been collected at 1000 m depth.” The one seen here was spotted off the coast of California at a depth of 900 meters (2,950 feet).
This cute fish was labelled “cuddlefish” by the crew of the scientists aboard the E/V Nautilus.
In July, the E/V Nautilus also found a mysterious purple orb (video below) in the ocean, which scientists speculate could be a pleurobranch, a type of sea slug, but haven’t been able to confirm. The official post on this says that “currently, none of the known species of California deep-sea pleurobranchs are purple, so this could be a new discovery.”
The ship is exploring the USS Independence, a World War II-era aircraft carrier which was intentionally sunk off San Francisco in 1951. Viewers can tune in to its website to watch the visuals as they unfold.
There are some great visuals of underwater life on its YouTube channel. In the video below, you can see a flapjack octopus, a jellyfish, flat fish and a shark. The “dumbo” octopus, so named for their ear-like fins, here tries to hide inside its own tentacles.
The pink octopus in Finding Nemo was modelled after the flapjack octopus.
In the video below, watch a pink octopus spreads its billowy arms.
