A huge giant squid shocked onlookers at Toyama Bay harbor in Japan.

The squid spent hours in the harbor and local diverse were able to film it as it swam around on Christmas Eve, and one curator from a local aquarium said it hadn’t been the first time a giant squid had been seen there in the past year, according to a BBC report.

The squid was actually only 12 feet long, tiny compared to the 40 feet they can grow to but massive compared to other cephalopods — showing just how this creature earns its name.

One underwater camerman actually helped guide the squid to deeper waters and closer to the exit to the sea so it could escape. Giant squids are difficult to spot because they typically stay deep in the ocean, making its appearance in the shallow harbor so unusual.

The squid disappeared soon after finding the exit, but the cameraman indicated that he was concerned the squid may have been quite sick and near death. Its body was pointing downwards and its legs were up, indicating it may have not been healthy although it did take some defensive actions when approached by divers.

The giant squid was a huge mystery until recent years, as only dead samples had ever been recovered. That all changed in 2004, when Japanese researchers captured the first images of a live giant squid in the wild. It wasn’t until eight years later that a live adult was actually filmed in Chichi-jima, Japan.

Giant squid have been the stuff of legends, often depicted in ancient literature as sea monsters. The actual battles they get into with their main predators, sperm whales, are likely quite epic: sperm whales have been spotted with tentacle marks on their bodies, indicate a mammoth struggle between deep-sea beasts.