It was large, rubbery looking and dead. And Jamie Todd and his family had never seen anything like it before.

They were on a boat between Challenger Bank and Argus Bank at the weekend ? about 12 miles off Bermuda ? when they saw the "strange" pink object floating in the water.

Upon closer inspection, they discovered what appeared to be a rather large squid, or something from the cephalopod family.

"I used to work at a Biostation when I was younger, but I have never seen anything like that before, so we brought it back to shore," Mr. Todd said.

He dropped the dead and smelly "find" off at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo (BAMZ) where he said staff appeared to be quite excited about it all.

Mr. Todd said he had no idea what staff were going to do with the dead squid, but thought it would be rather interesting to find out more about it and what had killed it, all in the interest of science, of course.

BAMZ curator Dr. Ian Walker could not be reached for comment yesterday.