Giant Squid Caught By Paddle-Boarder

James Taylor was at the coastal village of Melkbosstrand out of Cape Town, South Africa when he spotted what he thought was kelp or plastic floating beyond the waves.

Accordingly, he did what any reasonable man would do, he swam after it! Taylor took to his paddle board with his sights set on the floating matter. With him was his wife, Christina, who was armed with a camera.

As Taylor got close to the squid, he realized that it was a giant! The squid was huge and appeared to be lazily drifting and swimming erratically. Unfortunately, it was also apparent that the giant squid was injured - it was lethargic, some of its tentacles were missing and there were bite marks on the squid's flesh.

Taylor decided to catch the squid and take it to shore so he can keep the specimen in tact for research purposes. With a rope, he caught and maneuvered the squid towards him. Nearing his paddle board, the giant squid wrapped its large tentacles around it causing much excitement to Taylor and Christina.

If shown a shot of that particular moment, any reasonable man would think that a giant squid was attacking a paddle boarder.

When Taylor finally roped the giant squid, it fought him briefly with one of its tentacles actually causing a small cut on his skin.  He then wrangled the creature towards the shore.

When Taylor reached the shore with squid in tow, onlookers have already assembled to marvel at the sight of his rare catch. At that point, the giant squid was not moving anymore. Taylor then decided to quickly end its suffering.

Taylor and company then called the Waterfront Aquarium. Researchers responded and dissected the giant squid.

Seeing the video, Dr. Mike Vecchione, invertebrate Zoologist from the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History confirmed that based on the footage, Taylor caught a genuine Architeuthis or in common terms, a giant squid. Dr. Vecchione also confirmed that if a squid of this type was found in the shallows, it was usually injured or dying.

All pictures above belong to James Taylot and were screen captured from James Taylor's video. The full video is on James Taylor's Instagram.