Update: After a week of work on the octosquid, Richard Young concluded that the curious critter is in fact a rare species of squid that has been around for thousands of years but never named. Its eight-armed appearance was likely created when its tentacles were ripped off in the pipeline. So for now, no octopus/squid hybrid. But hey, it's still a weird new species.

But don't get too disappointed, because the Natural Energy Lab of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) is all over the sea-monster thing. Jan War, NELHA Operations Manager, told Monster-Watch that he's developing the Deep Sea Critter Program at NELHA. "The program strives to frequently sample the organisms being sucked up through our deep seawater pipelines and collaborates with a number of local and international scientists," says War. In other words, we should get a proper examination of every deep-sea mystery beast NELHA can grab. War has high hopes for the program. "It is still in its foundation stages, but I envision this to become a very interesting program to scientists around the world," he says.

The next big little thing from NELHA? Microshark! Stay tuned!

(Photo Credit: Jan War, National Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority)