The first visual record of the long-arm squid was in September 1988. The crew of the submersible "Nautile" encountered a long-armed squid off the coast of northern Brazil, , at a depth of . In July 1992, the "Nautile" again encountered these creatures, first observing one individual two times during a dive off the coast of Ghana at and depth, and then another one off Senegal at . Both were filmed and photographed. In November 1998, the Japanese manned submersible "Shinkai 6500" filmed another long-armed squid in the Indian Ocean south of Mauritius, at and . A third video taken from the remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) of the oil-drilling ship "Millennium Explorer" in January 2000, at Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico () at allowed a size estimate. By comparison with the visible parts of the ROV, the squid was estimated to measure with arms fully extended. The ROV "Atalante" filmed another Indian Ocean specimen at and , in the area of Rodrigues Island, in May 2000. In October 2000, the manned submersible "Alvin" found another long-armed squid at in Atwater Valley, Gulf of Mexico (). These videos did not receive any media attention; most were brief and fairly blurry. In May 2001, approximately ten minutes of crisp footage of a long-armed squid were acquired by ROV "Tiburon", causing a flurry of attention when released. These were taken in the Pacific Ocean north of Oʻahu, Hawaii (), at . On 11 November 2007, a new video of a long-arm squid was filmed off Perdido, a drilling site owned by Shell Oil Company, located 200 statute miles (320 km) off Houston, Texas in the Gulf of Mexico. The specimens in the videos looked very distinct from all previously known squids. Uniquely among cephalopods, the arms and tentacles were of the same length and looked identical (similar to extinct belemnites). The appendages were also held perpendicular to the body, creating the appearance of strange "elbows". Most remarkable was the length of the elastic tentacles, which has been estimated at up to 15–20 times the mantle length. Estimates based on video evidence put the total length of the largest specimens at or more. Viewing close-ups of the body and head, it is apparent that the fins are extremely large, being proportionately nearly as big as those of bigfin squid larvae.