The Literal Stuff of Nightmares

Your eyeballs have no doubt already darted to the hideous sea monster emerging through the hazy, green mist below this paragraph. The newest fodder for my thalassophobia (fear of deep water) and reason to keep my psychotherapist employed, this bad boy was found in the Gulf of Mexico by a remotely operated Shell Oil underwater drone.

Before you ask, yes — there’s video footage, too. But be warned. It’s no “two-girls-one-cup,” but it still might haunt your nightmares for a while.

Apparently, this monstrosity actually has a legitimate explanation. It’s called a mangapinna squid, first discovered in 1907 but it wasn’t until 1988 that the first footage was caught.

It has elastic tentacles thought to be 15 to 20 times longer than the squid’s body, with a total length is around 26 feet. The arms and the tentacles of the mangapinna squid are the same length and look identical. These ten appendages are also often held at right angles to the body, or mantle, which gives them the appearance of having elbows.

Very little is known about the feeding behavior of these squids but it is believed it feeds by dragging its arms and tentacles along the seafloor, slowly grabbing organisms it’s able to grasp.