Bigfin squid: World’s deepest-swimming squid ever recorded at 6km below sea level

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Researchers looking for the wrecked remains of a Second World War destroyer ship have instead found the deepest-dwelling squid ever recorded swimming about 6km below sea level. The bigfin squid, spotted swimming about 6,212m under the Philippine Sea just above the ocean floor, has become the deepest-swimming squid known to humans, beating the record of another squid discovered about 4.7km below the Pacific Ocean. The researchers spotted the lone bigfin squid swimming close to the seafloor while probing the ocean floor for more of the ship’s wreckage using a crewed deep-submergence vehicle known as “The Limiting Factor”. “These observations extend the known hadal occurrence of cirrates, and cephalopods in general, from the Indian Ocean to the equatorial North Pacific Ocean, suggesting that their global presence in depths > 6000m may be more extensive than previously recognised,” the researchers wrote in the study.