Beachgoers in Japan were left stunned recently as a rare giant squid washed ashore.

On the morning of April 20 local fishermen noticed the marine creature floating on the coast of Ugu in Obama city, Fukui prefecture.

The authorities have measured the mammoth cephalopod and found it was almost 10ft long and weighed about 70kgs.

The huge squid was still moving and alive when it was first found however later it sadly got weaker and died.

The body has been delivered to the Echizen Matsushima Aquarium in Sakai city, where it will be displayed to the public during the country’s Golden Week holidays.

Fisherman Kazuyuki Hamakami, 45, said: “I discovered the giant squid while repairing a net. I noticed its bright red colour ten metres away from where I was standing.

The giant squid washed ashore in Fukui ( Image: ViralPress)

The squid’s body will go on display ( Image: ViralPress)

“I was excited when I found out that the squid was alive. I called other fishermen, and they all were surprised too.”

Normally giant squid are elusive as they normally dwell in their natural habitat in the deep sea. In 2004 researchers in Japan took the first photos of a live giant squid back.

Two years later in 2006, scientists from Japan’s National Science Museum managed to catch and bring to the surface a 24-foot female giant squid. National Geographic then said the largest giant squid to be measured was 59 feet long and weighed almost one ton.

This comes after back in 2020 the extremely rare bigfin squid was spotted in the Australian waters for the first time. The rare sea creature was found around two kilometres under water during some underwater surveys being taken in the Great Australian Bight, an open bay off Australia’s southern coast.

The huge squid was still moving and alive when it was first found ( Image: ViralPress)

The bigfin squid was first spotted by the researchers more than 2100 metres under water. To spotted the squid the researchers involved in the survey tied a camera to the bottom of a boat. In subsequent surveys the rare squid was spotted on several occasions.

Using state of the art lasers the team measured one of the squid’s. They found that the bigfin squid was in fact 1.8 metres long, and its tentacles account for 1.68 metres of that length.

Two out of the five bigfin squid’s that were spotted were just 300 metres apart. This is rare for the sea creatures as they are never normally seen in the ocean so close together.

Researchers are hoping that they will get even more sightings of the rare sea creature to help them develop their knowledge of the animal.