A 32ft monster “kraken” squid stunned locals when it washed up on a town beach.
The creepy creature was spotted in the cove on Friday (11 Oct) by astonished people out on their morning walk.
Footage shows how it took three workers to remove the bulky mollusc’s body from the sand.
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The approximately 10m long specimen was spotted on El Sablón beach in Llanes, northern Spain.
The town hall wrote on social media on Friday: “This morning, a giant squid appeared on El Sablón beach.
“The remains of the cephalopod have already been removed from the beach by environmental technicians and municipal workers.”
It’s believed the washed-up specimen is a giant squid (Architeuthis Dux).
Individuals of this species can reach a terrifying 13m (43in) in length.
They live in the deep-sea zone and were only observed in the wild for the first time ever in 2004.
Giant squid may have inspired the Gorgons and Scylla of Greek mythology and the kraken of Nordic legend.
They may have also inspired the fictitious, flesh-eating “Haploteuthis ferox” of H. G. Wells’ “The Sea Raiders”.
And the ship-destroying “poulpe” of “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne.
President Luis Laria of the Coordinator for the Study and Protection of Marine Species believes the specimen in Llanes is almost certainly a female.
Females are known to grow to longer lengths than males, as reported by Need To Know.
It may have lived in the Carrandi trench – a large marine chasm up to 6km (4 miles) deep that begins almost immediately off the coast of Spain’s Asturias region.
As to why it washed up in the cove, Laria believes it either died naturally or was caught.
“The remains are very fresh,” he told local media.
