A woman out for a walk on a South African beach made quite the discovery.
A couple in South Africa got an enormous surprise while walking at South Africa’s Golden Mile Beach last weekend.
Adele Grosse and her husband were enjoying their stroll when they came across a giant squid – weighing more than 600 lbs and spanning four metres – washed ashore.
© Iziko Museums of South Africa.
“Oh my word, seeing it at first really took my breath away,” Ms Grosse told Live Science.
“Honestly, it looked like a majestic prehistoric animal.”
Ms Grosse, who’s from Cape Town, said at first, “I just wanted to get it back into the ocean. But on closer observation, one could see that it was dead.”
© Iziko Museums of South Africa.
Ms. Grosse said that she didn’t see any marks on the squid in relation to the squid being attacked by a predator. So it is unsure as to how the squid died.
After uploading images of the creature to social media, Ms Grosse got in touch with curator of marine invertebrates at South Africa’s Iziko Museums, Wayne Florence.
Dr Florence and his team collected the squid, and are now storing it at a freezer facility until they can properly study its DNA and anatomy once the COVID-19 lockdown ends, a statement from the museum reads.
