Phil said:
Looks like two rows of suckers to me, though it is difficult to say for sure. Is that a keel visible on one the upper arms in the top photo again?
I see two rows of suckers on the arms. In the lower picture, The lower arm near the head is turned back, and seems to clearly show two rows of suckers turned up. This picture was tough to enhance, it was not of great resolution to start with.
It also appears, at least in the top picture, that the tentacles are cocked back along the length of the mantle. I don't know if this is significant. I don't see a keel, but I'm also not entirely sure what that is. If you mean a raised edge along the length of the arm, I don't see that.
What intrigues me is that it looks to me like this animal is going after something on a line that appears to be a dead squid of some sort. It looks like the dead squid(?) on the line has been torn in two, with the mantle and viscera still on the line, and the head and tentacles loose in the water. In the first picture, it looks like the large red animal has the head and arms of the dead animal in its own arms on the left, while in the second picture, it appears to have the arms and head more cradled in its arms. I could be completely off-base on this, though... it's hard to tell. It may just be water froth churned up that makes it look like the red animal's arms are around something else.
What is particularly interesting is the sharp difference in colour between the dorsal and ventral sides of the animal. The ventral side looks pale, while the dorsal side is vivid red. Could we be seeing some kind of environmental camoflage in action; light side toward the bottom to blend with the surface, red side toward the surface to blend with the dark depths?
I keep saying "the red animal" when I want to scream "
ARCHITEUTHIS!!!".
It sure looks like a giant squid to me! These pictures show what appears to be a large and robust animal, not a trick of the light making a much smaller squid appear to be big. The main clue to me is the swivel on that line; it looks like the kind of swivel used on deep-sea fishing gear to connect the leader to the line (the line is above the swivel leading offscreen; the leader has that tapered white egg shaped thing on it and runs into the "bait"). Perhaps this photo was taken by fishermen who snagged something with a trolling line they didn't expect? I'm trying to identify the gear on the line; if it's what I think it is, a floater meant to keep submerged bait from sinking too deep and a deep sea fishing swivel, that is one big G.D. squid.
I forgot to mention: those big swivels, at least ones I've seen and used, are usually about 2-4". So if you figure that swivel is 4" long... you do the math on the animal.
But it's hard to say for sure, and almost impossible to identify fishing tackle from a picture like that. Could be 4", could be smaller. This page has some pictures of the tackle I'm talking about.
http://www.blueoceantackle.com/rigging_kits.htm
Scroll down to the "barrel snap swivel kit" and "ball bearing snap swivel kit", and compare those to what's visible in the first picture. Those swivels are each about 2-3" long IIRC.
(Edited for accuracy and to correct hyperbole from overenthusiasm and lack of sleep.
After fact-checking with my salty ol' pop, those swivels are not as big as I remembered from when I was a lad. The biggest deep sea swivels can be as big as 5", but they would look very distinct. That one in the picture is probably no more than 3", maybe 4".)