An animal with eyes bigger than basketballs? Surely not!

Well, actually there is. In today's episode Fin tells us about a sea creature that lives deep in the ocean that has eyes the size of beach balls.

Find out which animal it is and why they need such silly eyes.

Transcript:

Welcome to Brain Pop! — where your brain goes boom with one mind-blowing fact every day!
I’m Fin — your friendly fact explorer — and today we’re diving deep into the ocean to meet a creature with a body part SO big, it’s hard to even imagine.

Let’s get that brain popping — with something giant and seriously googly-eyed!

Okay, ready for today’s wild fact?
There’s a creature deep in the ocean called the colossal squid — and it has the biggest eyes of any animal on Earth.

How big are we talking?
Each eye is about the size of a beach ball!
Not a tennis ball. Not a basketball. A beach ball. Around 30–40 centimeters wide — that’s almost as wide as a large pizza!

Why does the colossal squid need such ginormous eyeballs? Well, in the deep ocean, where it’s darker than a cave at midnight, having huge eyes helps them spot even the tiniest bit of light — like the glow of another weird deep-sea creature trying to sneak by.

The colossal squid doesn’t just have big eyes — it’s also massive overall. It can grow up to 14 meters (or about 45 feet) long — about the size of a school bus! And it has hooks — yes, hooks — on its arms instead of just suction cups, like many other squids. Some of those hooks even swivel, like little grappling hooks.
This squid is basically an underwater boss level creature.

And get this — even though it sounds like something out of a monster movie, humans hardly ever see colossal squids. Most of what we know comes from squids caught accidentally by deep-sea fishing ships.

The colossal squid lives in the super cold waters near Antarctica — swimming through pitch-black darkness, with its enormous eyes looking for prey. Creepy… and totally awesome!

Wow! — that fact was bigger than my whole imagination!
Thanks for popping your brain with me on today’s big-eyed, deep-diving episode of Brain Pop!.

Come back tomorrow for another giant-sized curiosity. And here’s your ocean-sized question of the day:
If you could have a superpower inspired by an animal, what would it be? Giant squid eyes to see in the dark? Dolphin sonar to find hidden treasures? Shark sense to smell a snack a mile away?

See you next time on Brain Pop! — where curiosity is cool, facts are fun, and every day your brain goes BOOM!