NOAA OER Researchers in the Gulf of Mexico have captured video of a giant squid in its native habitat for just the second time ever.

It’s not quite the “devilfish” Jules Verne conjured for “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,” nor is it likely to “drag ships down into the depths.” But unlike the horror fantasies imagined time and again in pop culture, this giant squid ― just the second ever to be caught on video in its natural habitat, and the first ever in the Gulf of Mexico ― is decidedly real. A team of researchers on an expedition funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research captured the video earlier this week at a depth of 759 meters (2,490 feet), 100 miles southeast of New Orleans: