14 DAY TRIAL // When he and fellow diving enthusiasts set out to explore the waters of the Mediterranean off the coast of Turkey, photographer and filmmaker Lutfu Yanriover expected to find some funny-looking fish, maybe a bizarrely shaped boulder sticking out of the seafloor.
Well, it just so happens that they came across something way more exiting to swim around: a squid egg nest about the size of an SUV.
The group found the squid egg nest, a blob-like sphere measuring an estimate 13 feet (4 meters) across, at a depth of about 72 feet (roughly 22 meters) and surprisingly close to shore. At first, they had no idea what it was they were looking at and poking with their fingers.
It was only later, when they showed their video to wildlife researchers, that they learned they had swam around with an army of squid eggs.
In an interview with Live Science, NOAA specialist Michael Vecchione said the nest might have been the work of a female red flying squid. The researcher went on to describe it as basically a collection of tens of thousands of eggs embedded in a jelly-like matrix.
“We don't know exactly how many eggs are in there, but it’s likely on the order of thousands to tens of thousands,” Michael Vecchione said.