A man walking his dog along a New Zealand beach was surprised Wednesday when he came across the corpse of a gigantic squid.
ABC News reported that the Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium, which collected the marine animal to study, announced the news on its Facebook page.
The aquarium said that the "MASSIVE specimen" was over 6 feet long, with an eye measuring 3.15 inches wide and tentacles that reached 16.4 feet in length.
The New Zealand Herald noted that from top to tentacle, the beast is a whopping 23 feet long and it is now on display for all to see.
"Before the birds got to it, we got help to move it to the aquarium where it is safe inside a freezer with glass windows so you can see it -- on display until we can do more with it,” the aquarium stated.
Exactly how the large sea creature died remains a mystery at this point as the squid was fully intact and had no obvious wounds when it was found washed ashore.
Even though 23 feet is incredibly massive for a squid, it is not the largest ever found. That honor actually goes to a squid that measured 59 feet long and weighed nearly a ton, according to the National Geographic.
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