In 1997, scientists sent cameras down with sperm whales to find the monster hidden in their scars: the giant squid. The footage they wanted never came, but the failed hunt helped point science toward one of the deep ocean’s most elusive animals

In 1997, scientists sent cameras down with sperm whales to find the monster hidden in their scars: the giant squid. The footage they wanted never came, but the failed hunt helped point science toward one of the deep ocean’s most elusive animals

Sperm whales come up from the deep wearing evidence. Rings of pale scar tissue across the head and flanks, some as wide as a coaster, pressed there by something with suckers and no interest in being seen. For most of the twentieth century those marks were as close as anyone had come to a living giant squid. In early 1997 a team decided to stop reading the scars and go ask the whale. Follow the hunter, find the prey Sperm whales eat giant squid. …