Watch the mesmerizing first-ever footage of a rare Antarctic squid

Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Oceanographers on an excursion in the Southern Ocean captured a chance, unprecedented encounter with a sizable deep-sea squid. While piloting a remotely operated submersible 7,000 feet below the ocean surface from aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's research vessel Falkor (too), experts glimpsed a three-foot-long Gonatus antarcticus specimen. But according to National Geographic's announcement, the team wasn't even supposed to be in that location when they stumbled across the elusive cephalopod. "The ice blocks were moving so fast, it would put all the ships in danger, so we had to rearrange everything," said Manuel Novillo, a researcher at the Instituto de Diversidad y Ecología Animal.