…why, it’s the 2007 Octosquid.

Not a major scientific achievement, by any means, but a neat find that goes to show the riches the sea has hidden from us.

 But local scientists are nevertheless fascinated with the tentacled creature that was sucked up to the surface Tuesday by the 55-inch deep sea pipeline at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority.

“It’s kind of an ‘octosquid,'” said Jan War, operations manager at NELHA at Keahole Point. “It’s got the body of a squid but the eight tentacles of an octopus.”

The foot-long “octosquid” was rescued alive from a filter at the end of the pipeline, which each minutes brings up to 5,000 gallons of 39-degree Fahrenheit sea water from a depth of 3,000 feet.

I know a guy who is a big believer in things like the Loch Ness Monster. Things like this — the discovery of new creatures — are all the evidence he needs that things like Nessie exist.

It is a little tough to explain the difference between a small cephalopod variant 3,000 feet below the Pacific and population of living dinosaurs in a 750 foot deep 20 square mile lake.

Still, octosquid is darn cute.