A team of scientists exploring the deep waters off Western Australia has made a surprising discovery: traces of giant squid DNA. This remarkable finding, made using environmental DNA (eDNA) technology, also uncovered hundreds of other marine species, some of which have never been recorded in the region before.
The research was conducted aboard the R/V Falkor, a research vessel from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which explored the Cape Range and Cloates submarine canyons, located around 1,200 kilometers north of Perth. These canyons, some of the deepest parts of the Indian Ocean, are notoriously hard to study due to their remote location and extreme depths. Still, using eDNA, the team was able to identify 226 species across11 different animal groups from depths of over 4 kilometers.
The Power of eDNA in Ocean Exploration
At its core, eDNA is a clever way of gathering information about marine life without having to actually capture or visually identify species. The team collected over 1,000 water samples, each of which contained tiny traces of DNA left behind by marine organisms. By analyzing these genetic traces, researchers can identify species living in these remote waters, often without ever seeing them. Dr. Georgia Nester, who led the research, shared just how eye-opening eDNA can be.
“We found a large number of species that don’t neatly match anything currently recorded.” she added, “which doesn’t automatically mean they’re new to science, but it strongly suggests there is a vast amount of deep‑sea biodiversity we’re only just beginning to uncover.”
The fact that researchers were able to detect such a wide variety of species without even laying eyes on them suggests that the deep ocean is far more complex and varied than we previously thought.
Meet the Giant Squid, the Deep-Sea Big Reveal
Among the most exciting discoveries was the detection of Architeuthis dux, the giant squid, a creature that has long captured the public’s imagination. For over 25 years, no sightings of the giant squid had been recorded off Western Australia’s coast.
However, the team detected traces of its DNA in six separate samples from the Cape Range and Cloates Canyons. This marks the first time the giant squid has been identified in the region using eDNA, and it is the northernmost confirmed record of the species in the eastern Indian Ocean. Dr. Lisa Kirkendale, a researcher at the Western Australian Museum, noted the rarity of such discoveries.
“There were only two other records of giant squid from Western Australia, but there had not been a sighting or a specimen for more than 25 years,” she explained.
The giant squid, known for itsenormous size and elusive nature, lives at depths where few humans have ventured. The DNA traces found in this study, published in Environmental DNA, suggest that these deep-sea predators in the region could be more common than initially assumed.
A Sneak Peek into the Deep Sea We Can’t Explore
The giant squid may have stolen the spotlight, but the researchers also uncovered dozens of species never previously recorded in Western Australian waters, including the faceless cusk eel (Typhlonus nasus) and the slender snaggletooth (Rhadinesthes decimus), not to mention several species of deep-diving whales like the pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps) and Cuvier’s beaked whale (Ziphius cavirostris).
According to Dr. Nester, some of the DNA samples didn’t match any known species at all, suggesting that the team may have stumbled upon previously unknown creatures living in the depths. What’s particularly striking about these discoveries is the realization that we still know so little about the biodiversity of the ocean’s deepest regions. As Dr. Zoe Richards from Curtin University put it:
“You can’t protect what you don’t know exists. The sheer number of discoveries, including megafauna, makes it clear that we still have so much to learn about what marine life lives in the Indian Ocean.”
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