Colossal squid
The largest recorded specimen was captured in 2007 by a New Zealand fishing boat off Antarctica. It was initially estimated to measure in length and weigh . The squid was taken back to New Zealand for scientific study. A study on the specimen later showed its actual weight was , but it only measured in total length as a result of the tentacles' shrinking "post mortem".
Cephalopod size
The total length of the Berzin specimen was later confirmed to be erroneous; according to Valentin Yukhov, who was involved in the specimen's discovery, it should have read (Romanov "et al.", 2017). The misprint was reproduced in the English translation published the following year and was later propagated in a number of papers on giant squid (Romanov "et al.", 2017). With the Berzin specimen not being as large as originally reported, the longest giant squid recovered from a sperm whale is the TL individual recorded by Clarke (1956:257) (this specimen also has the longest confirmed ML and SL of any giant squid from a sperm whale; Paxton, 2016a:83). Paxton considered the "longest visually estimated" TL to be the published by Murray (1874:121), from an eyewitness account by fisherman Theophilus Picot, who claimed to have struck the floating animal from his boat, causing it to attack. Picot managed to hack off one of its tentacles, which was subsequently examined by a number of authors (see Murray, 1874; Verrill, 1875a; Verrill, 1875b).