Giant squid caught by fisherman dubbed a 'monster of the deep'

In a scene straight out of a sci-fi film, a fisherman in Hawaii has caught a giant squid dubbed a “monster from the deep”.

Nikko Eterovich caught the diamondback squid on 1 February, and he said it was the biggest he ever had caught and its weight even broke the Hawaii state record at around 15 kilograms.

Eterovich shared images of the squid - which he claimed to be 4.8ft long and 2.1ft wide - on Facebook.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

In an interview with Hawaiian TV station, KHON2, Eterovich said it was a normal night of work when he and his crew saw something they first thought was a mantra ray.

Upon realising what it has, he tried to hook the squid to his fishing pole but struggled.

"I thought for sure it was gone," he told KHON2. "I gave it a line but kept the tension and was able to fight it back up to the surface. Wasn't going to let it get away the second time."

He finally managed to catch it then took it to a local fish market to be sold, where he was told it was the biggest squid they’d seen and could make “about 100 plates of calamari.” Yum.

The diamondback squid is typically found in tropical waters across the globe, growing up to 4.2ft in size meaning that Eterovich’s catch might be the biggest on record.

Also, they usually swim at the depths of the ocean at around 164 ft, making the fisherman’s catch even more unique.

Andrew Rossiter, of the Waikiki Aquarium based in Honolulu told Hawaiian TV station KHON2: "It's one of the monsters from the deep that we see occasionally in Hawaii. It's a big animal.

“I'm not sure as I mentioned what species it is but it's probably normally found in deeper offshore waters. So unusual to see it caught."

Squid for dinner, anyone?

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.