Architeuthis dux: News and admiration of nature's top wonder

[Squid]

A bit of Giant Squid Humor

I was this close to going 20,000 Leagues on those assholes, and, just to warn you, Giant Squid can never predict when Giant Squid's gonna just flip out on some dude. I'm the great enigma of the deep and even I don't know half of what I do. Giant Squid is shrouded in mystery, y'all.

That is The Awesome. (Though just for the record, I would never date Neve Campbell.)

On another note, I don't suppose anyone Tivo'd / taped the "Squidapalooza" sketch on Letterman?

[c-dog]

They can't get enough of the squid

[galleta]

I WANT IT!!!!

[c-dog]

Coming soon to a bookshelf or Powells.com near you...

Animals of the Ocean, In Particular the Giant Squid
by Dr. and Mr. Doris Haggis-On-Whey
Advances many heretofore unexplored discoveries and opinions, including squid dating dos and don'ts, why squid are not at all able to watch television in black and white, and the ways in which people who don't know any better might think fish are not animals.

[Squid]

How do they know Mr. Very Large, Very Angry, & Very, Very Free isn't going to come back and attack them while they're screwing around with the severed tentacle?!

As I was saying...

(and the second photo is pretty funny as well).

EDIT: Oh dear. Please scroll even further down to look at the ninja squid doll.

[Squid]

Just a reminder that Xmas is around the corner, and if you're wondering what to get for your closest cephalopod friend:

The “squid robot”, Hakodate it is even in the squid and also the dance is possible...

[bijou]

can't underestimate the necessity of a tall squid that can also dance... or the multiple possibilities of hilarious flailing arm malfunctions... i'd buy that for a dollar... (;-D)

[grant]

Caught -- on video.

It MOVES!

TOKYO (Reuters) - Its mass of reddish tentacles flailing, a giant squid fought a losing battle to evade capture in a video unveiled by Japanese scientists on Friday.

Images of the squid -- a relatively small female about 3.5 meters (11 ft 6 in) long and weighing 50 kg (110 lb) -- were the ultimate prize for zoologists at the National Science Museum, who have been pursuing one of the ocean's most mysterious creatures for years.

"Nobody has ever seen a live giant squid except fishermen," team leader Tsunemi Kubodera of the museum's zoology department said in an interview on Friday. "We believe these are the first ever moving pictures of a giant squid."

The Japanese research team tracked giant squid by following their biggest predators -- sperm whales -- as they gathered to feed near the Ogasawara islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo between September and December.

They succeeded in taking the first still photographs of a living giant squid in 2005, observing that it moved around in the water more actively than previously thought, and captured food by entangling prey in its powerful tentacles.

[megalies]

make that 'it moved'

[c-dog]

The Japanese scientist in the video has a great lanyard.

[grant]

The same team has now captured on tape another squid, Taningia danae, which hunts with fast-moving bioluminescent arms, and measures 2.3 meters long:

The researchers were perhaps even more surprised to find that T. danae was an extremely active and aggressive animal. Like many other large squid, its muscles are flabby because of the tiny bubbles of ammonia that give it buoyancy. This has led researchers to suggest that these squid must be sluggish, largely inactive animals.

In fact, the videos shows that adults are extremely agile - they can flip around very suddenly. They can also swim forwards just as easily as they swim backwards, reaching speeds of 9 kilometres per hour, by flapping their large triangular fins.

They also flirted with the team's flashlights.

[the new girl]

I saw this last week while sitting in an exciting retreat for work (and dutifully 'taking notes' on my trusty laptop), and I'm a little surprised y'all missed it.

33 feet long. 990 pounds. But the best part of the article is the following:

One expert said calamari rings made from it would be like tractor tyres.

I wonder if they'd be as rubbery as tires too...

[Liesbeth]

So here you are, minding your own business, eating a toothfish and you run into some toothfishing kiwi's - what a sad way to die.

On a sidenote, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, great album title for a progrock band.

[grant]

How strange -- that story just came out a couple days after I made up a story about M. hamiltoni attacking a boat off New Zealand (an excuse to run the T. danae story as a sidebar). Funny how things fall together....

[Moni]

This is getting more and more grotesque by the minute.

Microwave plan for colossal squid:
An industrial-scale microwave oven may have to be used to defrost a colossal squid caught in the Antarctic last month, scientists say.
They are pondering how to thaw out the half-tonne squid in a way that makes sure none of it rots before other parts have defrosted.
The squid has been kept frozen since it was caught by New Zealand fisherman in deep Antarctic waters in February.

[Betty Felon]

I always defrost shrimps by submerging them in water, wouldn't warm embalming fluid work? Microwave seems so barbaric.

[the new girl]

Live webcasts of giant squid thawing!!!

Here.

Doesn't appear to have started yet, but the links/cameras are live already. I know where I'm spending the next few days while wasting time online :)

[Liesbeth]

wow Betty, you were almost right about how to go about this.
But it will take up to 4 days to thaw this squid, I'm not gonna wait up for that.

interesting bit of information from the Te Papa Museum website:

No eyes are visible in photographs of the specimen, and their exact size won’t be known until the squid is thawed and measured. Giant squid, with eyes up to 25cm across (the size of a human head), were previously thought to have the largest eye in the animal kingdom – but the colossal’s are almost certainly bigger.

[Betty Felon]

More ocotopus love drama:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23899655/

"They flirt, hold hands and guard their lovers jealously...male cephalopods guarding the dens of their mates for several days, warding off rivals and even strangling them if they got too close."

[leigh]

Of all the threads, I think this one seems the most likely to earn a cameo in a Long Winters song...