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Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
 Posted: 05-06-2004 14:58 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Britain fights for giant squid
By Charles Clover
(Filed: 05/06/2004)
Britain is expecting a fight with other EU fishing nations on Monday as it calls for a United Nations ban on deep-sea trawling to preserve creatures such as the giant squid.
Trawling on deep-sea mountains and cold coral reefs is thought to be exceptionally damaging ecologically because of the slow growth rates of creatures at great depths.
The giant squid is one of many creatures in danger from deep-sea trawling
A reef is believed to take 100,000 years to recover from the damage caused by a bottom trawl. Elliott Morley, the environment minister, said yesterday: "We would support a ban on destructive fisheries in international waters. These are very important ecosystems."
Simon Reddy, of Greenpeace, said: "More people have been into space than into the dark depths of the oceans. Scientists say there could be as many as five million species we've never discovered. Destroying sea mounts is like blowing up Mars before we get a chance to explore it." |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/06/05/wsquid05.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/06/05/ixworld.html |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 15-06-2004 15:06 Post subject: |
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And an interview with everyone's favourite giant squid reseacher (picked up via TONMO):
| Quote: | Loft full of all things squidy
15 June 2004
Giant squid and the fishing industry form the third talk in the Sea Around Us winter lecture series at the Marine Education and Recreation Centre, in Long Bay. Errol Kiong meets zoologist and passionate conservationist Steve O'Shea, who has spent the past seven years studying the mysterious denizens of the deep.
Steve O'Shea loves squid. He's devoted the past seven years of his life to studying them.
They're good eating as well, Dr O'Shea admits.
He's perhaps best known internationally for his research into the giant squid, mysterious creatures that can grow up to 13 metres long and weigh up to 275kg.
The zoologist's secluded loft in the Auckland University of Technology's city campus, where he is a senior research fellow, is surrounded by all things squidy.
Drawings, plastic models, specimen jars and vats all reflect his current pursuit. Even his computer screen saver features squids.
But to say squids have been his life's work is a misrepresentation. He is, first and foremost, an octopus specialist who only recently branched into squids.
"They're a fascinating, fascinating group of animals."
Dr O'Shea is also a passionate conservationist who's been issued with death threats. His outspoken views on deep sea trawling in New Zealand clearly do not endear him to the fishing industry.
His work on giant squids was a "complete accident", he says.
A phone call seven years ago changed the course of his career. A giant squid had washed up on shore, and the-then scientist with the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research thought it would be exciting to examine the carcass.
"Ever since then things have been a little out of control."
By out of control, he means the 117 further dead giant squid he examined over the next seven years have made him the foremost expert on these animals in the world.
He's also one of the few to have laid hands on a colossal squid, which is even larger than the giant squid.
Despite this, still little is known about these mysterious creatures.
Dr O'Shea does know, however, that they do not attack whales. The misconception really gets up his nose.
Giant squid eat small fish and other squid. The female grows to a total length of 13 metres while the male reaches up to 10 metres.
"These records that you get of 60-foot long, 20-metre long squid are absolute nonsense."
Nobody knows how many there are. What is certain is they do not live in New Zealand waters throughout the year, migrating to places such as Hokitika Canyon and the Banks Peninsula to breed in certain months.
The mating process of the giant squid is a barbaric one, he says. The 275kg female has a 20-gram brain, while the smaller 150kg male has a 15-gram brain.
With a 15-gram brain coordinating a 1.5-metre penis, eight arms and two tentacles, it is understandable why cannibalism sometimes occurs during mating, Dr O'Shea says.
Animals of that size simply do not have large populations, he says, and their numbers are affected by commercial fishing.
The methods of the fishing industry, particularly in New Zealand, is something that really gets Dr O'Shea going.
New Zealand has 96 species of squid and 42 species of octopus in its waters, the highest diversity count in the world.
Five octopus species discovered here in 1999 are already extinct, he says, solely because of deep sea bottom trawling.
Trawling, he says, impacts on the early life stages of squid.
Bottom trawling kills all the squid in nets, or disturbs the environment to such an extent that these animals just go away, he says.
Squid are environmental barometers, similar to frogs on land, he says. When you disturb an oceanic environment, the first thing to go are the squid.
In the good old days, says Dr O'Shea, he would see up to 23 dead giant squid a year. This year, he's seen only one.
People tend to point the finger at the Japanese practices of drift netting and whaling, he says, but they are oblivious to the fact that New Zealand boats are the worst environmental destroyers in the world.
"We're working New Zealand waters, we've devasted those international waters around New Zealand waters, South Australian waters, Azures waters, South American waters, South African waters ... we're leading the world in the destruction of the marine environment. That's tragic.
"We're fishing 1.5km deep now simply because there's nothing living shallower," he says.
All this does not bode well for the squid.
A paper in 1967 found that a sperm whale's diet comprised 37 per cent of commercial fish species like orange roughy and hoki. Today, says Dr O'Shea, the whale eats almost exclusively squid, chomping down between 800 and 1000 a day because of fish scarcity.
To compound that, the 21 species of squid that are the sperm whale's staple diet waft on the brink of vanishing completely.
Over the next decade, Dr O'Shea anticipates an even further change to the sperm whale's diet to include other classes and species of squid.
When the squid go, he says, so too will the whale.
The tragedy, he says, is that like most deep sea animals, we still know too little about them.
Everything we know now about giant squid, he says, is based on post mortem examination.
"We are basically too resource and cash-starved in New Zealand to undertake the in situ observation of what's down there."
With the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier and Kelly Tarlton's, Dr O'Shea heads off to the Hawke's Bay next month to attempt to catch a juvenile giant squid, among other squid species.
But he is resigned to fighting a losing battle. He knows he cannot save the giant squid from extinction.
"It's basically too late." |
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2941259a7693,00.html
Emps |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 22-06-2004 20:16 Post subject: |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 14-08-2004 03:51 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Rare Giant Squid Caught Off Canary Islands
Squid Is Nearly 30 Feet Long
Fishermen catch a giant squid, one of the ocean's most reclusive creatures, off of Spain's Canary Islands.
The squid measures nearly 30 feet long and weighs 222 pounds. It was found tangled in the fishermen's nets. It had already died.
There have only been 300 confirmed sightings of giant squids over the past 500 years. None have ever been seen alive.
The creatures usually live at depths of more than 660 feet, but sometimes surface to feed on fishermen's bait.
Smaller squid are considered a delicacy, but giant squid are inedible because their bodies contain a high concentration of ammonia, which helps them survive in deeper waters.
The squid will be turned over to the Canary Islands Institute of Science for research and will eventually be put on display at a local museum.
The largest giant squid ever found was nearly 60 feet long and weighed 2,000 pounds. |
http://www.nbc30.com/news/3651163/detail.html |
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| CygnusRex Incubus Joined: 04 Jan 2002 Total posts: 1771 Location: NOT on a ladder, just outside your bedroom window Age: 83 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 25-08-2004 00:39 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Giant squid trucked to Auckland for autopsy
TUESDAY , 24 AUGUST 2004
A 300kg giant squid found on Farewell Spit yesterday will be trucked to Auckland for an autopsy by a squid specialist Steve O'Shea at Auckland University.
The 5.7m squid was found 3km from the lighthouse by tourists on a Farewell Spit Tours trip.
Simon Walls from the Department of Conservation said it was the biggest squid he had seen washed up on the Spit.
Big squid sometimes got caught in nets and the one found yesterday could have been discarded by a fisherman.
The squid had been wrapped in dolphin body bags and was being kept at DOC's workshop in Takaka, where many locals had come to take a look at it.
"We could not find a big enough freezer for it," Mr Walls said.
A team of DOC workers managed to get the giant squid on to the back of a utility truck with the help of the tide |
Image
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 25-08-2004 01:30 Post subject: |
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Steve O'Shea was hinting at somehting like this the other day at TONMO and now the news has been circulated he is claiming has something very interesting planned for this specimen (possibly related to the fact that he will be conducting a non-invasive autopsy on it) - should be interesting 
See:
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=31702#31702 |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 27-08-2004 12:07 Post subject: Giantest Giant Squid |
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| According to the news, which i am currently watching, the "giantest giant squid was washed up in Auckland yesterday". It weighs 300kg and measure 40ft long. It will take several months to 'prepare' before it can go on show. |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 27-08-2004 12:20 Post subject: |
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Wow!
That's 100kg bigger than the Falklands one!
It's been a good (or bad, if your a squid) week for giant squid.
You wait ages for a giant squid, and then two come along at once.
I wonder if it's a seasonal thing?
Giant squid trucked to Auckland for autopsy
24 August 2004
A 300kg giant squid found on Farewell Spit yesterday will be trucked to Auckland for an autopsy by a squid specialist Steve O'Shea at Auckland University.
The 5.7m squid was found 3km from the lighthouse by tourists on a Farewell Spit Tours trip.
Simon Walls from the Department of Conservation said it was the biggest squid he had seen washed up on the Spit.
Big squid sometimes got caught in nets and the one found yesterday could have been discarded by a fisherman.
The squid had been wrapped in dolphin body bags and was being kept at DOC's workshop in Takaka, where many locals had come to take a look at it.
"We could not find a big enough freezer for it," Mr Walls said.
A team of DOC workers managed to get the giant squid on to the back of a utility truck with the help of the tide.
Story and pic here |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 27-08-2004 12:24 Post subject: |
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Calamari anyone? 
(think it's probably the same one Stella. NZ are famous for having their finger on the pulse several days after the rest of the world)... |
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 27-08-2004 12:32 Post subject: |
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As giant squid seem to be a bit of a theme at the moment, here's an article on a scientist who reckons he can grow them in captivity from the larval stage.
How cool!
Seeking the Giant Squid
By Maryalice Yakutchik
Auckland, New Zealand — Inky tabloid snapshots notwithstanding, no one has seen a live adult giant squid and returned to tell about it, according to Steve O'Shea. But if the New Zealand zoologist has his way, that's about to change. O'Shea thinks he'll soon be eyeball-to-soccer-ball-sized eyeball with this secretive creature, observing and documenting its mysterious behaviors.
A senior research fellow in the institute of earth and oceanic sciences at Auckland University of Technology, O'Shea has been working for four years to master the techniques of keeping giant squid alive, from the delicate larval stage throughout the life cycle. He is also determined to film an adult giant squid in its own environment.
Wherever that may be.
"Lots of people have spent lots of money looking in the wrong place at the wrong time and wrong depth," O'Shea says.
O'Shea thinks he knows the right place, right time and right depth. He's mounting two expeditions in 2004 in the southern Pacific Ocean off New Zealand. The first trip (in February) will be to collect juvenile giant squid; the second (in July) will be to find and film the adult.
To lure an adult to within camera range — perhaps 1,650 feet (500 meters) below the sea surface — O'Shea will be armed with a special chum unlike anything that has been used before. The secret ingredient: a female pheromone mix. "We'll grind it all up and drive the male (giant squid) mad," he promises. "And draw it into our camera."
"We don't believe it's darting around in the water column. We believe it's oriented on a 45-degree angle, drifting, with two tentacles held together for their entire 5-meter (16.5-foot) length with two expanded tentacle clubs, opening and closing like tweezers, seeking prey. The tentacles are not muscular. They can't draw (prey) back to the beak. The animal has to dart forward and restrain the prey held in the tentacles with its arms."
O'Shea has studied more than 100 adult giant squid specimens, all of which were inadvertently caught by commercial fisheries in deep-sea trawl nets. "Giant squid are smaller than most people believe," he says. The biggest was a 37-foot-long (11 meter) female weighing 605 pounds (275 kilograms). Males are generally smaller; the largest he's studied was 30 feet long (9 meters) and weighed 330 pounds (150 kilograms).
O'Shea also has studied the beaks of giant squid, which often turn up in the stomach contents of sperm whales.
Despite admitting that "we don't know the first thing about this animal, how it behaves," O'Shea is confident about a few particulars. For instance: When he takes tissue samples from near the fins of giant squid he's noticed lots of ions that control buoyancy, their density progressively decreasing down to the tentacles. This leads him to believe that the only way the animal can sit in the water column is at an oblique angle.
During O'Shea's first expedition next year, he'll be looking for the giant squid larvae that aggregate to feed on plankton just below the ocean surface. Using a hard wire ring affixed with a material similar to pantyhose, he'll set out to collect the juveniles, which are less than a half-inch long (a maximum of 10 millimeters).
"The objective is not to collect hundreds of dead larvae, but one or two in excellent condition, not stressed by the net," O'Shea explains.
The juveniles, almost entirely transparent, go opaque when they die. In O'Shea's experience, this occurs almost instantaneously when they are put into rectangular tanks. He plans to house them in cylindrical tanks with special lighting.
"Previously, no one's been able to keep the larvae of oceanic pelagic squid alive for more than 13 days," he says after years of trial and error. "We did it 75 days, and then we released them." Next year, he'll try to keep a squid alive indefinitely to watch it grow to an adult.
The juveniles are incredibly sensitive to their environment, he explains, but are "quite robust little animals" when all the many particulars are taken care of. For instance, captured ones require a marked contrast between tank wall and floor, as well as a special current which allows them to hover in the water column.
The boat for the February expedition, where he hopes to catch and keep alive juvenile giant squid, will have to be its own ecosystem, says O'Shea. "This is the only way, I believe, that we can ensure we can produce sufficient numbers of prey for the baby squid. Earlier we depended on catching sufficient appropriate-sized prey for the squid larvae whilst at sea; for this next expedition, we will take with us fully operational cultures of algae, enriched brine and mysid shrimp, and fish egg and larval cultures: the algae to feed the brine/mysid cultures; the brine/mysid to feed the fish larvae; and the fish larvae to feed the squid. We will also play with lighting a little more than we have had the opportunity to do so to date. I absolutely believe we can keep them alive indefinitely."
The current projects, O'Shea says, only scratch the surface when it comes to researching the deep-sea creatures classified as squids. Someday, in the not-so-distant future, he plans to apply what he learns from the giant squid in order to study even bigger and more elusive squid species. There are mysterious animals out there, he says, with hooks on their arms, glowing lights on their eyes, and enormous beaks that can cut through cable.
"There are creatures," O'Shea says, "that make the giant squid look like real puppies."
[URL=dsc.discovery.com/convergence/quest/projects/oshea.html]From the Discovery Channel.[/URL]
Do we love this guy, or what?
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| Anonymous |
| Posted: 27-08-2004 12:35 Post subject: |
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Yes it is the same one, but I went searching for an article.
When I said two, I mean't the Falklands one reported earlier this week.
Sorry to confuse anyone. |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 29-08-2004 02:05 Post subject: |
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These appear to be the plans they have for the Giant Squid:
| Quote: | Giant Squid To Go On Show
28/08/2004 10:02 AM
NewstalkZB
A giant squid washed up at Farewell Spit is the largest specimen ever discovered.
Auckland researcher Dr Steve O'Shea has identified the creature from the deep, which is now at a storage facility in Auckland.
The 300-kilogram squid will be kept deep-frozen until October when there will be work to preserve it and eventually put it on show.
Dr O'Shea says the find is important in understanding the little-known species, which is threatened through over-fishing of coastal waters. |
http://xtramsn.co.nz/news/0,,3762-3644914,00.html
and from what Steve O'Shea says at TONMO it is one of the largest ever found - coming in at a possible original length of 14-15m (the 300 kg quote is a press exagertaion - its closer to 250 kg):
http://www.tonmo.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=31988#31988 |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 23-09-2004 01:33 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Seismic surveys may kill giant squid
16:58 22 September 04
NewScientist.com news service
One of the oceans’ most mysterious animals, the giant squid, may be being killed by human noises. Unusually high numbers of dead giant squid, washed up on Spanish shores, have led scientists to believe that loud, low-frequency sounds made by oil companies charting the sea bed are killing the creatures.
Fear of damage to marine mammals has resulted in restrictions on low-frequency marine noise in the US, and awareness of the issue in Europe is growing. NATO exercises with high-intensity sonar in 2002 were charged with harming beaked whales in the Canary Islands. Norway rejected demands by environmentalists to limit seismic surveys off the Lofoten Islands in 2003.
Now the giant squid has joined the list of potential victims. The animals grow up to 20 metres in length and are found in deep, cold waters worldwide. Little more is known about them as efforts to observe them in their native habitat have failed, and scientists recorded only dead, stranded specimens.
Normally, only one giant squid per year is found along the coast of Spain, says Angel Guerra of the Institute for Marine Investigations in Vigo, Spain.
Oil and gas
But in the autumn of 2001, five were found stranded ashore or floating dead at sea, along Spain’s northern coast on the Bay of Biscay. In 2003, another four were found.
On both occasions, Guerra told New Scientist, geologists were conducting offshore seismic surveys nearby for oil and gas that same week, firing 200 decibel pulses of sound below 100 Hertz from an array of 10 air guns. The reflections of such pulses by different geological strata can reveal the structure and potential mineral composition of the seabed.
The nine dead giants included immature and maturing females, and two males - the first ever found in Spain. They were up to 12 metres long, with weights up to 140 kilograms. None had signs of surface damage but all had internal injuries.
In two squid the damage was extensive, with stomachs and hearts ripped open and muscles disintegrated. “Some organs were unrecognisable,” says Guerra.
Badly damaged ears
And all the squid had badly damaged ears. Guerra thinks this might have disoriented the giant animals and made them swim to the surface, where they suffocated, as water temperatures there are too warm for the oxygen-carrying molecules in their blood to function. He suspects that in squid with massive internal damage, the blast caused dissolved gases in their tissues to form bubbles, such as those produced by shaking a fizzy drink.
“No one has ever seen this before in giant squid,” says Guerra, who fears there might be many more victims.
Local fishermen also reported seeing large numbers of dead fish floating at sea during the surveys. These were the first seismic surveys in the area, but Guerra says the surveyors, led by geologists from the University of Orviedo and affiliated with the Spanish oil company Repsol, plan to continue in 2005.
Guerra, in his address to the Annual Science Conference of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, which is being held in Vigo, Spain, said he wants a discussion in the region first about how, and if, seismic surveys at sea should be done, in light of this new evidence. |
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996437 |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 24-09-2004 18:43 Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 2004-09-24
Giant squid: Monsters of the sea
Peabody exhibit captures most elusive of sea creatures
By Robert Miller
THE NEWS-TIMES
| Quote: | | ' The frightful animal!' he cried. I looked in my turn and could not restrain a movement of repulsion. Before my eyes was a monster worthy to figure in squid legends.' ' |
— from "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,'' by Jules Verne.
How lucky to be a fictional character and see what no mundane real-life human has — a giant squid.
Giant squid are the largest creature no one has ever seen alive. Squid are huge, weighing as much as half-a-ton, their tentacles stretching out to 30 or 40 feet. But they dwell deep in the ocean, far past our limits to see.
Which only adds to their pull on human imagination. Along with the science, there are the ancient tales of sea monsters, the sailor's stories of mammoth battles between squid and whales.
"It's one of the most fascinating creatures in the world to study,'' said Henry Townsend who spent three years in the 1960s helping the Peabody Museum of Natural History build its life-size model of a giant squid.
That handsome, 10-tentacled plastic and foam beast — after being removed to Yale University's biology department — is hanging again in the lobby of the Peabody, in part to celebrate the museum's new show "In Search of Giant Squid.'' It opens Saturday Sept. 25 and will be at the museum through December.
The exhibit has been organized by the Smithsonian Institution and will travel throughout the United States after it leaves New Haven. But the Peabody itself has a long involvement with the squid — its first curator of zoology, Addison Verrill was the first person to describe giant squid scientifically. Along with sheaves of Verrilliana in its archives, it has many squid and octopus specimens in its massive invertebrate collection.
Dr. Clyde Roper, a curator emeritus at the Smithsonian and one of the world's authorities on giant squid, visited Yale in the 1960s. He came to study their invertebrate collection and to act as a consultant in the construction of the giant squid model.
"This is so appropriate,'' said Jennifer Bine, the Smithsonian's project director for traveling exhibitions. "It's a cycling back for Clyde, and to bring the exhibit back to the Peabody and Verrill — it's good karma.''
The exhibit was also a thrill for Eric Lazo-Wasem, the Peabody's senior collections manager in invertebrate zoology, and for Barbara Narendra, the Peabody's archivist. They had a general idea of how rich the Peabody' collection was in giant squid paraphernalia; finding things for the exhibit gave them a chance to explore it in detail.
"We have so much,'' Narendra said. "We were making a discovery a day.''
Lazo-Wasem, who lives in Redding, said the museum's director, Michael Donoghue, had been enthralled by the invertebrate collection and wanted to get more out where people can see it.
"Now, we finally get to do that,'' Lazo-Wasem said.
The exhibit includes early descriptions of Kraken — huge sea monsters that were probably giant squid. It also has Howard Pyle illustrations from boys' adventure books and Marvel Comic covers, both showing men valiantly warding off attacks by giant squid. Two constants in these drawings, Lazo-Wasem said, are that the drawings are anatomically incorrect, squid-wise and that the men always have axes on hand to lop off a tentacle or two.
"No matter where they are, they have an ax,'' he said.
While other 19th century zoologists began to understand that there actually might be a living creature that fit the myth, it was Yale's Verrill who actually tried to study it.
Verrill's work came about because of an oceanographic quirk — there are occasional decades when dead giant squid washed ashore in Newfoundland and the other Maritime provinces of Canada. One occurred from 1871 to 1881; another was in the 1960s.
It was nearly impossible to get specimens shipped to New Haven, in part because Newfoundland fishermen generally cut up the squid they found for dog food or bait, in part because there were no jets to rush fragile squid parts hither and yon.
"Imagine what Newfoundland must have been like in the 1880s,'' Lazo-Wasem said.
Nevertheless, Verrill did got enough giant squid parts, preserved in ethyl alcohol and shipped south, to make the first valid scientific observations about the species, Architeuthis dux. cqOf the 75 scientific papers Verrill wrote in his lifetime, about a dozen concern the giant squid.
"He was the first zoologist to describe it, to characterize it for the scientific community,'' Lazo-Wasem said.
Yale still has those Newfoundland specimens, which are part of the exhibit. Lazo-Wasem said he was surprised himself at some of the preserved squid parts of hand, including the beak of a squid Verrill described in one of his papers.
"I didn't know we had it,'' he said. "But we had a student writing a paper on giant squid and she was very persistent about seeing this squid beak. I finally went down into the collection, looked on the shelves and found it.''
The exhibit also pays tribute to one of the first women professors of zoology, Grace Pickford. Working at Yale in the 1930s, she discovered an intermediate group, called the vampire squid, which fit between the eight-armed octopuses and the 10-tentacled squid. She also used the Yale collection to study the giant octopus, which, while at 35 pounds is big for an invertebrate, is not in the giant squid class.
"She was one of the most unsung women scientists in American history,'' Lazo-Wasem said. "But I know scientists who are now doing molecular analyses of the specimens she studied. They think even DNA will confirm the differences she observed.''
The 20th century scientific study of giant squid makes them more fabulous that the old myths. They jet-propel themselves through the water by a system of interior body structures which can gather water and then eject it; those tubes also allow giant squid to travel from 5,000 feet deep to the ocean's surface and down again without being damaged by water pressure.
They can also change color in an instant to blend into their surroundings, to swim undetected by predators.
"It's stealth technology in invertebrates,'' Lazo-Wasem said.
Giant squid have eyes as large as soccer balls — the largest eyes of any creature in the world. They have a large, hard beak, eight shorter tentacles and two tentacles that in the larger females, can be 35 to 40 feet long — scientists theorize they use those tentacles to grab passing fish for food.
And although none have been seen alive, enough specimens have been found on the shore or in fishermen's nets to lead scientists to believe the giant squid lives in all the oceans of the world.
Marine biologists have also studied whales enough to know that those stories of deep-sea battles between squid and whales are probably true. They know whales feed on squid because they've found giant squid beaks in whale stomachs; they've also seen whales scarred with the round pattern of squid suckers.
And for those who think of squid only in terms of fried calamari, two scientists did try to fry and eat a bit of giant squid. They found it so bitter as to be inedible — giant squid flesh, like that from a lot of deep-sea dwellers, is high in ammonia.
In recent years, zoologists have tried in vain to see a giant squid in its natural surroundings. The Smithsonian's Roper led an expedition that attached a waterproof camera to the back of a sperm whale, in hopes it would catch an image of the squid in passing.
"We got some fascinating images of sperm whale behavior,'' Bine, of the Smithsonian said. "But no giant squid.''
Although the exhibit will leave the Peabody by year's end, the model of the giant squid will stay put, cruising the air above the museum's lobby. The model — one of the first of a giant squid that was true to science — had hung in the lobby for years, then was shifted to a nearby biology building. It does not travel lightly.
"Every time it gets moved, it's a bigger challenge,'' Lazo-Wasem said. "When we brought it back here, we had to get it through a revolving door in the biology department. How do you get a giant squid through a revolving door?''
| Quote: | In search of...
Giant Squid
On Sunday at 12:15 p.m., Smithsonian research zoologist Dr. Clyde Roper, curator of “In Search of Giant Squid,” will give a talk about current efforts to find giant squid.
From noon to 4 p.m., the Museum will offer squid-related activities, including crafts, storytelling, live animal displays, and games on how squid and octopus suckers work!
A gigantic participatory sidewalk drawing of a giant squid is also planned, weather permitting.
All activities are free with admission. |
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"The Search for Giant Squid'' will be at the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven from Saturday, Sept. 25 to Sunday. January 2, 2005.
The museum is open Mondays through Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. It will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas and New Year's Day.
Admission is for adults; for children 3 to 18; and for seniors, 65 and over. Admission is free Thursday afternoons from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.
For more information, call the museum at (203) 432-6342 or go to its Web site at www.peabody.yale.edu |
http://leisure.newstimes.com/story.php?id=65188 |
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| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-11-2004 16:28 Post subject: |
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Seems like the balloon has gone up on this one folks - give your copy of "The Kraken Wakes" a final once over and then report to your nearest naval/military base for further orders. Its us or them time I'm afriad.
| Quote: | Giant squid 'taking over world'
By Simon Benson
GIANT squid are taking over the world, well at least the oceans, and they are getting bigger.
According to scientists, squid have overtaken humans in terms of total bio-mass.
That means they take up more space on the planet than us.
The reason has been put down to overfishing of other species and climate change.
A report in the Australian science journal, Australasian Science, said marine researchers are now in universal agreement that cephalopods have been given an advantage not available to any other sea creature.
And as a result they have been allowed to flourish.
Their growth rates also seem to be increasing as is their body size.
The findings may offer an answer to the mysterious appearance of a giant squid on the coast of Tasmania last week and hundreds of squid washed ashore on the coast of California this week, although El Nino is also being partly blamed.
Squid are now regarded as the "major player'' in the world oceans by sheer volume alone.
Overfishing of some fish species has taken away competition for the squid in finding food resources.
The warming of waters due to climate change have also allowed squid to expand their populations.
Dr George Jackson from the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean studies in Tasmania said squid thrived during environmental disasters such as global warming.
The animal ate anything in that came their way, bred whenever possible and kept growing.
"This trend has been suggested to be due both to the removal of cephalopod predators such as toothed whales and tuna and an increase of cephalopods due to removal of finfish competitors,'' said Dr Jackson.
"The fascinating thing about squid is that they're short-lived.
"I haven't found any tropical squid in Australia older than
200 days.
"Many of the species have exponential growth, particularly during the juvenile stage so if you increase the water temperature by even a degree it has a tremendous snowballing effect of rapidly increasing their growth rate and their ultimate body size.
"They get much bigger and they can mature earlier and it just accelerates everything.''
The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN supports the theory claiming squid landings have been increasing over the past 25 years at greater rates than fish.
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http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,4811363%5E13762,00.html
Oh and start eating more calamari too!!
A serving suggestion: Apply a good dose of lemon juice and dip in some mayo. |
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