Scientist Kat Bolstad, left, from the Auckland University of Technology, and student Aaron Boyd Evans examine a colossal squid at a national museum facility Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014, in Wellington, New Zealand. The colossal squid, which weighs 350 kilograms (770 pounds) and is as long as a minibus, is one of the sea’s most elusive species. It had been frozen for eight months until Tuesday, when scientists in New Zealand got a long-anticipated chance to thaw out the animal and inspect it _ once they used a forklift to maneuver it into a tank. AP Photo/Nick Perry New Zealand scientists at Te Papa museum dissected an almost 800-pound colossal squid on Sept. 16. This was the second of these giants ever to be found intact. Both were dragged out of the Ross Sea, off the freezing coast of Antarctica.

Colossal squid, with their eight arms and two tentacles, both covered in fearsome rotating hooks, are the largest tentacled creatures in the ocean as measured by weight. The first one ever found, in 2007, weighed in at almost 1,100 pounds.

Giant squid are frequently cited as being longer — an 1887 scientific paper claimed they measured one at 55 feet long — but it's unclear if those measurements are accurate. And with so few colossal specimens ever examined and the variations and changes in body size that occur after death, researchers say they would need to examine many more colossal squid to really understand how large they can grow.