Several people were fishing over the weekend just off Florida's Atlantic coast when they pulled up a 23-foot-long squid.
They say they were fishing about 12 miles offshore from Port Salerno when they saw the squid, WPTV reported.
"We pulled up... thought it was something to fish on, a pallet or something like that. We looked at it, all three of us were like 'holy mackerel,' " Robert Benz told WPTV.
The squid’s body is about 11 feet long, and its tentacles were so long, it barely fit into the 23-foot-long boat.
“Nobody believes a fisherman," said Benz. "It didn't seem it had been dead long, the tentacles were still moving and it was sticking to you when we got it in.
Ellie Van Os, Director of Education and Exhibits at the Florida Oceanographic Society, said such a find is not common. "It's foreign to imagine that there's an animal with 8 arms and 2 tentacles that are twice as long as the arms and their mouth is in the middle of their arms ... and big eyes."
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission took the squid to a facility in St. Petersburg for a necropsy.