The corpse of a giant squid washed up on the shores of Cantabria at La Arena beach in northern spain Live Science reported Friday.
The creature measured 30-feet in length and weighed 400 pounds. It's known as an Architeuthis dux, or the largest invertebrate (animals without backbones) on the planet Earth. It currently resides at the Maritime Museum of Cantabria according to newpaper El Diario Montanes.
"It was shining and so beautiful," team leader Tsunemi Kubodera, a zoologist at Japan's National Museum of Nature and Science, told Agence France Presse. "I was so thrilled when I saw it first hand, but I was confident we would because we rigorously researched the areas we might find it, based on past data."
The squid, which washed ashore on Tuesday, had oversized eyes and a gigantic blob for a boby to make it appear "mythical" than a real beast Live Science reported. According to the University of Michigan's Museum of Zoology, the squid's eyes are the largest anyone has ever seen on a creature of its kind, which can grow to be the size of a human's head. The characteristic is not just there for decoration however as the squid uses them to see in deep murky sea waters where light is very limited.
While not much else is known about the squid, scientists claim the giants live in cooler waters because their blood does not carry oxygen at high temperatures. Scientists also believe Architeuthis's have extensive nervous systems, and complex brains like their counterparts in the cephalopods category of species. These include octopuses, and cuttlefish.
Last year, Tsunemi Kubodera, a zoologist at Japan's National Science Museum in Tokyo took the first live footage of a squid, which closely resembled the one found this week at La Arena beach. The squid on the video was found off the shores of the Ogasawara Islands, which sit 620 miles south of Tokyo in 2,066 feet of water.
