The world through squid eyes

We might think deep-sea squid look a bit strange, but if they have the capacity for it, they would likely consider us monsters! Claire speaks to a squidologist and a PhD candidate about their research trying to understand more about the lives of deep-sea squid.

When you picture where creatures live on Earth, what do you see?

A tropical jungle? A highland pasture? An inland lake? Maybe a rocky seashore?

All of it combined - ecosystems on land, plus shallow coasts - makes up just 5% of the liveable space on our planet.

Instead, maybe you should be picturing somewhere dark, cold, and under hundreds of metres of water.

The deep-sea world

"If aliens would come to planet Earth and sample the habitats here to find out what our biodiversity is like, they could conceivably have to sample 95 times before they would find a habitat that was not deep sea," says Associate Professor Kat Bolstad from Auckland University of Technology.

This is why scientists are still finding new species of deep-sea squid.

When Kat says deep-sea, she means the part of the ocean below the sunlight ("photic") zone, where photosynthesis can take place. But even without sunlight, there are plenty of creatures down there making their own light though bioluminescence.

It's a very different world to our up-top, dry-air, UV-intense spaces, which makes it tricky for us to visit and study. You can lower submarines or equipment down there. But squid are alert to anything strange in their environment and tend to make themselves scarce.

Kat does make use of such exploration methods and has even been down to depths of 1,000 metres in a bubble submarine in the Antarctic herself. But to unravel the secret lives of squid, she also relies on other avenues. Like "squid Christmas".

'It's the most wonderful time of the year'

Every year, Kat and some of her research team travel to Wellington for "squid Christmas" - a clean out of NIWA's freezers that sometimes yields "presents" in the form of "squidsicles" - frozen squid specimens.

It's always a time of excitement.

"Anytime you look at samples from the deep sea, there's a reasonable chance that you will see something that no human has ever seen before," says Kat.

As well as NIWA, Kat collaborates closely with Te Papa and Auckland Museum, who also have marine collections filled with deep-sea treasures collected by research vessels on fishing surveys, biodiversity sampling, or discovery expeditions.

Focusing on squid eyes …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details