About 100 miles off the Texas Gulf Coast city of Matagorda, a young fisherman named Michael Belvin and his friends came upon what they thought was an oversized white plastic trash bag floating in the water.

It turned out that Belvin and pals found not garbage remnants but a giant squid — a rare sight anywhere, let alone in Gulf Coast waters. The squid measured about 10 feet long and weighed 200 pounds.

Belvin told KTRK-TV that the squid was missing roughly half of its body and looked to have been the victim of an attack by another creature, perhaps a shark.

Giant squid are deep-sea dwellers and would not likely be witnessed in shallower waters unless they were ill or injured. Houston Zoo Aquarium Supervisor Mike Concannon suggested to KTRK that the squid may have been sick and was attacked while surfacing.

The giant squid is the world’s largest invertebrate, the biggest one ever documented stretching to 59 feet long. They have eight arms lined with hundreds of suckers and eyes as big as grapefruit — the largest eyes in the animal kingdom.

Belvin donated the creature to local researchers for further study.

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