The Arctic Ocean is one of the most extreme environments on Earth, but that’s not stopping one cephalopod from making a home there. In a first, researchers observed an Arctic bobtail squid in the North Atlantic, capturing video of a mature female squid tending her eggs.

The video shows that this species can reproduce and raise its young in one of the coldest, least-studied oceans on Earth.

The finding “highlights the resilience of marine life in one of Earth's most extreme environments,” said Paige Maroni, a researcher at the University of Western Australia who led the study, published in Polar Biology, in a statement.

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The sighting occurred in Northeast Greenland National Park, the largest national park on Earth and also one of the least explored.

Maroni and her colleagues deployed remotely operated underwater vehicle to a depth of 50 meters when it spotted the squid and its eggs—at this depth, the water is -1.6 degrees Celsius (29.12 degrees Fahrenheit).

Squid and octopi occupy a special place in Arctic ecosystems, both hunting smaller prey and getting hunted themselves, making them a sensitive early signal of how the broader ecosystem is holding up as the region warms.

“Establishing knowledge of the biodiversity in this region is crucial for understanding ecosystem function and resilience under accelerating climate change.” Maroni said. “This study provides a valuable new baseline for tracking ecological change in the rapidly warming Arctic.”

The expedition itself points to a broader shift in how this kind of research gets done. The team wasn’t aboard a dedicated research vessel, they were on a Secret Atlas Micro Cruise Expedition ship, supported by Yachts for Science, a model pairing paying travelers with working scientists. Maroni says that pairing is proving to be more than a novelty.

“Our results show low-impact science and expedition tourism can help fill major biodiversity gaps in remote polar regions. In poorly studied polar ecosystems, even one verified observation can provide important insight into species distributions, reproduction and resilience under climate change,” said Maroni.

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