The deep-sea squid is a strange beast, and the more we learn about it, the stranger it gets. Recently, Japanese scientists observed the weirdest squid behavior yet recorded, in the Taningia danae species in the North Pacific. They’re about 8 feet long, they can travel at about 8 feet per second and change directions quickly underwater, and it turns out, they can emit blinding flashes of photoluminescent light. Probably used to disorient prey and disrupt their normal defense mechanisms, the flash looks not unlike that of 100 tiny flashbulbs going off along the length of their tentacles (see photo). The bioluminescence might also act as a mechanism to determine distance from a potential target, as well as serving quite another function, away from the hunting field — to attract a mate.