A Ghostly Little Squid Says Hello To A Robot

Professor Pip crouched beside a big glass tub full of icy water. A tiny paper iceberg bobbed on the surface, and floating on the bottom of the tub was a bright-yellow toy submarine with a little camera on its nose.

"Come close, my fellow scientists," Pip whispered, pushing his crooked spectacles up. "Today we're going to meet a squid who has been hiding from us for a hundred years."

Mia leaned over the tub. Leo held the remote-control antenna. Their friend Theo grinned.

"Hiding?" Leo asked. "How do you hide from everybody?"

"Ah!" Pip's whiskers twitched. "This squid — the Arctic bobtail squid — lives very deep, in freezing cold water underneath the ice near Greenland. Humans can't swim there. It's too cold, too dark, and the pressure would squish us like grapes. So we've only ever caught them in nets. Nobody had ever seen a live one at home."

"That's so sad," said Mia. "Poor squid, never having a visitor."

"Ah, but this week — a visitor arrived!" Pip beamed. "Watch."

He nodded at Leo, who wiggled the remote. The yellow submarine hummed to life and slid gently down into the icy water. On a little screen beside the tub, they could see everything the sub's camera saw — bubbles, glimmering blue water, and then, tucked between two pebbles, a plump, big-eyed little squid.

"There she is!" gasped Theo.

"Precisely!" Pip whispered. "That's an underwater robot. Scientists call it an ROV — a Remotely Operated Vehicle. It carries a camera down where people can't go, and it sends pictures back up through a long cable. It's how a scientist can 'visit' the deepest, coldest, darkest places without ever leaving the ship."

Mia snapped her fingers. "It's like a doorbell camera! But for the ocean!"

"OH MY WHISKERS!" Pip laughed and clapped his paws. "Exactly right, Mia. A doorbell camera for the sea floor. And this week, the doorbell rang, and a little squid was standing on the porch."

He looked at the softly rippling water in the tub. "For a hundred years, that squid was going about her life — hunting, hiding, sleeping — and nobody knew what she looked like when she wasn't scared. Then one small robot went and said hello, quietly. And now we know."

Pip pulled three tiny paper notebooks from his pocket. "Now you try. Draw a creature you think might live somewhere nobody has ever looked. What color is it? Does it glow? Later, we'll compare."