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Bigfin squids are a group of rarely seen with a distinctive morphology. They are placed in the genus Magnapinna and family Magnapinnidae. Although the family was described only from larval, , and juvenile specimens, numerous video observations of much larger squid with similar morphology are assumed to be adult specimens of the same family.
The arms and tentacles of the squid are both extremely long, estimated at . These appendages are held perpendicular to the body, creating "elbows". How the squid feeds is yet to be discovered.
Magnapinna is thought to be the deepest-occurring squid genus, with sightings as deep as below the surface, making it the only squid known to inhabit the hadal zone.
A single specimen of a fifth species, Magnapinna sp. B, was collected in 2006. Magnapinna sp. A was described as Magnapinna atlantica in 2006.
The genus was described from two juveniles and paralarva, none of which had developed the characteristic long arm tips. However, they did all have large fins, and were therefore named "magna pinna", meaning "big fin".
Although observations had been made over a decade earlier, adult bigfin squid only became known to science in 2001, when marine biology student Heather Holston sent footage of what she described as a "21-foot-long squid" to Teuthology Michael Vecchione. The footage had been recorded from an ROV in the Gulf of Mexico in January 2000 at the request of Holston's boyfriend Eric Leveton, who planned on showing it to her. Leveton was a structural engineer aboard the oil-drilling ship Millennium Explorer, who had happened to look into the ROV operation shack when the squid was observed by operators. Although Vecchione initially surmised from Holston's description that the footage might be the first video of a live giant squid ( Architeuthis dux), he realized that the video itself portrayed a completely different squid that had no known identity.
Further discussions with other cephalopod researchers found no leads on the identity of the squid, and it was thus dubbed the "mystery squid" for a portion of time. Analysis by Vecchione et al of previous footage from submersibles found other video records of bigfin squid, the earliest from 1988. Around the same time, new high-quality footage of a bigfin squid was also recorded off Hawaii by the ROV Tiburon. In December 2001, Vecchione et al published a paper collating these observations; this was also the first paper to identify them as potential members of the Magnapinnidae, which had been named by Vecchione from the juvenile specimens a few years earlier. Independent of Vecchione's publication, Guerra et al published a paper the following year analyzing some of the early bigfin squid footage, and also identified them as potential adult magnapinnids.
Eric Leveton's video, which was later shared with Vecchione, was taken from the remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) of the oil-drilling ship Millennium Explorer in January 2000, at Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico () at , and allowed for a size estimate. By comparison with the visible parts of the ROV, the squid was estimated to measure with arms fully extended. The Nautile filmed another Indian Ocean specimen at and , in the area of Rodrigues Island, in May 2000. In October 2000, the crewed submersible DSV Alvin found another bigfin squid at in , Gulf of Mexico ().
These videos did not receive any media attention; most were brief and fairly blurry. In May 2001, approximately ten minutes of crisp footage of a bigfin squid were acquired by ROV Tiburon, causing a flurry of attention when released. These were taken in the Pacific Ocean north of Oʻahu, Hawaii (), at . This video and the pre-2001 videos (which had not previously received much scientific attention) were documented by Vecchione et al in a paper that year, and some of the earlier footage was further analyzed by Guerra et al (2002).
On 11 November 2007, a bigfin squid was filmed off Perdido, a drilling-site owned by Shell Oil Company, located off Houston, Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. The ROV that filmed the squid had originally been sent to retrieve drilling equipment from the seabed, and encountered the squid floating near a well. After being circulated within the oil industry, the footage was shared with National Geographic News to have its identity determined, and was released to the public in 2008. This video received significant online attention in the years since its filming. Observations of bigfin squid were made in the Great Australian Bight during towed camera and remote operated vehicle surveys in 2015 and 2017 respectively. In 2018, the first observations of a bigfin squid were made from the Southern Caribbean, off the coast of Colombia.
In March 2021, during the expedition to document the wreck of the USS Johnston, the submersible DSV Limiting Factor recorded footage of a juvenile bigfin squid from the Philippine Trench at a depth of . This is the deepest observation of any squid, and rivalled only by some unidentified Cirrina octopods from the same habitat as the deepest observation of any cephalopod. This makes Magnapinna the first squid known to inhabit the hadal zone.
On 9 November 2021, a video of a bigfin squid was captured at a ridge feature off the West Florida Escarpment by an ROV from the NOAAS Okeanos Explorer as part of the Windows to the Deep 2021 expedition. The squid was found at a depth of , and its size is currently being measured using paired lasers.
ROV SuBastian of Schmidt Ocean Institute observed a bigfin squid in close proximity to a black smoker-type hydrothermal vent on 4 April 2023, during the "In Search of Hydrothermal Lost Cities" expedition. The squid was seen at a depth of .
Observer - Corresponds either to the person who collected the specimen; the vessel the specimen was collected on, or the vessel that observed the specimen for video-only observations.
Location - Given in Latitude/Longitude when available, otherwise the general region is given. For ROV dives with navigation data available, a link to the corresponding dive track is given, unless a more precise location is specified by a secondary source. Some coordinates from commercial ROVs are specified via UTM rather than Latitude/Longitude.
Depth - Supplied based on precision available from collection method for physical specimens; otherwise telemetry from ROV observations is used.
| MNHN-IM-1999-23523 | |||
| Magnapinna sp. C. Collected during surveys by John Gilchrist off South Africa in 1924. Designated "Octopodoteuthopsis sp. A" by G. C. Robson | [https://data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/collection-specimens/resource/05ff2255-c38a-40c9-b657-4ccb55ab2feb/record/5559477 BMNH 1924.9.9.48] | ||
| USNM 885787 | |||
| Cruise 17 R.H. Backus | || N/A || Yes | MCZ Malacology 370373 | ||
| Magnapinna pacifica | || N/A || Yes | MCZ Malacology 392887 | ||
| Unknown larva, described as "big-fin" | || N/A || Yes | SBMNH 144791 | ||
| Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | |||
| N/A|| No | N/A | |||
| N/A|| No | N/A | |||
| N/A|| Yes | USNM 885786 | |||
| 27°09'N, 86°07'W | N/A|| Yes | USNM 1086800 | ||
| 37°14'N, 32°18'W | N/A|| Yes | BNMH 20060134 | ||
| 32°45'S,57°1'E | Shinkai 6500 Dive 460 Cruise YK98-08 MODE'98 Leg4 - Atlantis II Fracture Zone - | JAMSTEC J-EDI|| No | N/A | |
| 28°37'N,88°00'W | ROV operating from Millenium Explorer | Smithsonian Youtube|| No | N/A | |
| 19°32'S, 65°52'E | [https://campagnes.flotteoceanographique.fr/campagnes/10060/ Gimnaut expedition], RV Atalante supporting | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| 27°34.7'N,88°30.6'W | RV Atlantis supporting DSV Alvin, WHOI cruise [https://www.dla.whoi.edu/cruise-details/AT3-58 AT3-58] | Smithsonian Youtube Smithsonian Youtube|| No | N/A | |
| 21.9°N, 158.2° W | RV Western Flyer supporting ROV Tiburon [https://www3.mbari.org/expeditions/Hawaii/history&purpose.htm Hawaii Cruise] | MBARI Youtube|| No | N/A | |
| 19.13000, -155.09720 | KAIKO Dive 208 Cruise KR01-12_leg2 | JAMSTEC J-EDI|| No | N/A | |
| 19.83670, -154.54330 | KAIKO Dive 215 Cruise KR01-12_leg2 | JAMSTEC J-EDI|| No | N/A | |
| 26°10'48"N, 94°37'23"W | Discoverer Deep Seas supporting ROV Hercules 8 | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | |
| 26°15'N, 94°40'W | Discoverer Deep Seas supporting ROV Hercules 8 | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| 42°8'N, 29°3'W | Bergen Museum MAR-ECO cruise super station 46, local station 374 | N/A|| Yes | ZMBN 77634 | |
| 2928-2489m | Badly damaged adult male | FMNH 308253 | |
| 2739m | RV Atlantis [https://www.dla.whoi.edu/cruises/d9798976-7cd9-4dca-8bc8-ee90f0861b82 AT15-03] Dive 4195, subadult male | N/A|| Yes | FMNH 308252 | |
| 3°13'N,15°00'W | Cruise [https://oceanrep.geomar.de/id/eprint/2918/ ANT XXIV-4] | N/A|| Yes | N/A | |
| N9485524.76, E1017934.76 (26°07'39.0"N 94°53'51.7"W) converted from UTM | Shell Perdido, Alaminos Canyon Block 857 | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | |
| Alaminos Canyon Block 258 | TXLS-22 from support vessel DMT Emerald | Unpublished SERPENT Project | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A |
| N1026271.0, E9486831.5 | "Eastern Array Installation" | Unpublished SERPENT Project | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A |
| ONSAP Station B246N | Collected by MOC10 net sampling during M/V Meg Skansi cruise MS6 as part of DEEPEND-RESTORE | N/A|| Yes | N/A | |
| ONSAP Station SE5D | Collected by MOC10 net sampling during M/V Meg Skansi cruise MS8 as part of DEEPEND-RESTORE | N/A|| Yes | N/A | |
| See dive track | NOAA Okeanos Explorer EX2012 Leg3 Dive 13 | ROV View Camera Platform View|| No | N/A | |
| Walker Ridge 95 | Unpublished Serpent Project | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | |
| Mississippi Canyon block 525 | Unpublished Serpent Project | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | |
| 26.13 N 94.88 W | OCS Study BOEM 2020-022 | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| 28.15 N 87.60 W | OCS Study BOEM 2020-022 | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| -37.2200 S -179.7740 W | RV Thomas G. Thompson TN309, HADES | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| 28:43.2808 N 088:06.5962 W | Nautilus Expedition NA043 | Unexpected Biology in the Gulf of Mexico|| No | N/A | |
| 28.59 N 87.84 W | OCS Study BOEM 2020-022 | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| -34.432, 129.987 | RV Investigator | Supplemental Video 1|| No | N/A | |
| -34.377, 129.985 | RV Investigator | Supplemental Video 2|| No | N/A | |
|| 3664m | Pourquoi Pas?
| Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | ||
| 9°12'25.732"N, 76°49'55.091"W | Old Purple Angel Well | Magnapinna Archive|| No | N/A | |
| -35.049, 130.905 | REM Etive | Supplemental Video 3|| No | N/A | |
| -35.049, 130.902 | REM Etive | Supplemental Video 4|| No | N/A | |
| -35.050, 130.904 | REM Etive | Supplemental Video 5|| No | N/A | |
| 9°25'59.282"N, 76°44'54.110"W | Gorgon 1 Well | N/A|| No | N/A | |
| 30.0255, -19.758333 | Pelagic trawl | N/A|| Yes | ICMC000146 | |
|| 1092m | ROV SuBastian Dive 295, [https://schmidtocean.org/cruise/necker-ridge-bridge-or-barrier/ Necker Ridge: Bridge or Barrier]
| Dive 295 - 6:58:03|| No | N/A | ||
|| 3000m | ROV SuBastian Dive 312, [https://schmidtocean.org/cruise/coralandcanyonadventure/ The Great Australian Deep-sea Coral and Canyon Adventure]
| Dive 312 - 2:00:36|| No | N/A | ||
| Philippine Trench | See inline video|| No | N/A | ||
| Central Indian Ocean | INDEX 2021, supporting RV Pelagia | ROV ROPOS|| No | N/A | |
| See dive track | [https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/waf/okeanos-rov-cruises/ex2107/#tab-10 Dive 10, Windows to the Deep] 2:56:25 | Highlight|| No | N/A | |
| Puy Des Folles Seamount | ROV SuBastian Dive 501, [https://schmidtocean.org/cruise/in-search-of-hydrothermal-lost-cities/ In Search of Lost Hydrothermal Cities] | Dive 501 - 9:33:44|| No | N/A | |
| Tonga Trench - Pacific Ocean | [https://hadalz.one/tonga-trench-1 Tonga Trench Expedition] | Inkfish Expeditions|| No | N/A | |
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