 |
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
BaronVonHoopla King Of The Booze
Grand Moff Joined: 19 May 2004 Total posts: 576 Location: Land Of A Thousand Dances Age: 77 Gender: Unknown |
 Posted: 05-11-2004 19:03 Post subject: |
 |
|
|
| Emperor wrote: |
Oh and start eating more calamari too!!
A serving suggestion: Apply a good dose of lemon juice and dip in some mayo. |
I don't think you'd want to be doing that, they are full of amonia, and not edible.
-Fitz |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 16-11-2004 16:24 Post subject: |
|
|
|
Seems that news report is rather an old one based on an overly sensational interpretation of a more sober study so stand at ease everyone 
-----------------
This strikes me as a rather loose use of the term "giant squid" and must refer to jumo squid but hey ho:
| Quote: | Peru seizes cocaine haul hidden in giant squid
16.11.2004 3.20 pm
LIMA, Peru - Peruvian police said on Monday they seized nearly 700kg of cocaine hidden in frozen giant squid bound for Mexico and the United States.
The drugs were covered in pepper to divert sniffer dogs and sealed in several layers of plastic and other wrappers. Police had been on the trail since August.
Seven people were arrested in the drug seizure. Police said the haul would have a street value of about .5 million (.31 million).
Peru is the world's Number 2 cocaine producer after Colombia, and many of its drugs end up on US streets after being sent via Mexico. |
Source
Last edited by Mighty_Emperor on 07-12-2004 00:48; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 07-12-2004 00:44 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | Updated: Monday December 06, 2004 at 5:19:12 PM
A Giant Squid in Colliers 12/6/04 (VOCM News)
A giant squid has been landed in Colliers. One resident, Angela, told VOCM Niteline with Linda Swain, it's about 20 feet in length, and is somewhat mangled. Some people dragged it up up onto the beach and it's been the target of photo buffs ever since. |
Source
| Quote: | Giant squid recovered in Conception Bay
WebPosted Dec 6 2004 02:47 PM NST
ST. JOHN'S — A giant squid that washed ashore Sunday at Colliers in Conception Bay is attracting plenty of attention.
Giant squid have never been observed in their natural, deep sea environment, and only occasionally wash ashore.
The squid that landed Sunday measured about 5.5. metres, from tentacle to tail. The squid had been broken into two pieces.
The squid is being held at Academy Canada in St. John's.
Instructor Bob Richard initially travelled to look at the squid, as did dozens of others.
"My intention was to go out and take some pictures and some measurements," says Richard, who retrieved the squid so it could be examined.
Researchers from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans will do an autopsy on the squid.
Scientists believe giant squid can grow to be as large as 18 metres long, and weigh as much as 1,000 kilograms.
In 1964, researchers at Memorial University landed an intact specimen, which measured about nine metres in length and weighed 150 kilograms. |
Source |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 07-12-2004 00:47 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | Giant squid to be 'plastinated' for posterity
11:17 03 December 04
Out of its natural habitat, the giant squid Architeuthis dux is something of a flop. “They’re so heavy, they collapse under their own weight. You lose the lovely cylindrical mantle and arms,” says Steve O’Shea, squid expert at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand.
But now for the first time, two huge giant squid specimens are being prepared to go on display. And the preparation is being done by controversial German anatomist Gunther von Hagens, who will use the “plastination” technique that he uses to display human bodies.
Von Hagens invented plastination while at the University of Heidelberg in the 1970s. The process involves replacing water and fat in the corpse with a polymer, and it has allowed him to exhibit dissected human bodies in life-like poses. But a giant squid, with its lack of a rigid internal skeleton for support, and relatively poorly understood circulatory system, poses some novel challenges.
To research the project, von Hagens visited O’Shea in October to study some much smaller species such as arrow squid. “We dissected a number of ‘sacrificial’ squid,” says O’Shea. This week, O’Shea sent a mature female giant squid, measuring about 10 metres including tentacles, and a mature male, just under 7 metres, to Heidelberg.
The plastination process could take up to a year, and the squid will need a rigid framework for support, but O’Shea is confident that von Hagens will be able to display the animals. |
Source
Steve O' Shea will ship you your very own fixed giant squid for NZ$10-12,000 if anyone is interested in buying one for the CFI. Scroll down the page for photographs and discussions on his plastinization process whichs should be fascinating!!! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| sunsplash1 Fortean and Proud
cognitively purposefuly I Joined: 09 Jan 2004 Total posts: 2074 Location: The Hills, overlooking a smallish antipodean city in South Australia Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 28-07-2005 09:24 Post subject: Hannibal Squid |
|
|
|
| Quote: | Giant squid may be cannibals
GIANT squid may have more on their menu than ill-fated sailors. Australian researchers have discovered that the mysterious creatures – enshrined in myth as ferocious beasts that attack hapless mariners – may indulge in cannibalism.
The University of Tasmania team used a novel DNA-based approach to test the stomach contents of a 190kg male specimen caught by fishermen off Tasmania's west coast in 1999.
Three tentacles and 12 squid beak fragments were found in the stomach of the giant squid.
While the beaks could not be identified, DNA from stomach juices and tentacle fragments all belonged to the giant squid, or Architeuthis dux.
The only other species identified was a fish, the blue grenadier, not previously recorded as Architeuthis prey.
The giant squid is the world's largest invertebrate, believed to grow up to 18m in length and weighing up to 900kg.
They have eight arms as thick as fire hoses and large and complex brains.
But because none have ever been caught alive, mystery still surrounds the species.
They are believed to live at depths of anything between 200m and 700m, and specimens have been found stranded all over the globe.
Identifying the prey of giant squid has also been difficult, due to the scarcity of samples and their tendency to finely macerate their food.
To eat, they shoot out two longer tentacles like a bungee cord before drawing their prey into the mouth, where a parrot-like beak chops the meat into small chunks.
PhD student and research leader Bruce Deagle said the DNA results provided a framework for future studies, particularly diet data collection from the giant squid and other rare species such as beaked whales.
Australian Antarctic Division research scientist Simon Jarmon said while the study could not rule out accidental self-ingestion, the Tasmanian research was probably the first time giant squid cannibalism had been demonstrated "reasonably conclusively".
"People for a long time thought that DNA in dietary samples would be too degraded because of all the digestive processes," he said.
Dr Jarmon said scientists would use the DNA technique on marine animals including whales and penguins, but future research of the giant squid was dependent on getting more samples.
"They're such mysterious creatures. You can't really tell anything about them because no one has ever seen one alive, you've got no idea how many there are or what they might be feeding on," he said.
The giant squid's only known enemy is the sperm whale. Whales have been found with squid in their stomachs, and battle scars believed caused by its suckers.
The Australian Newspaper
July 28, 2005
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16076897%255E1702,00.html |
Hungry Buggers! |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Mighty_Emperor Divine Wind
Joined: 18 Aug 2002 Total posts: 19943 Location: Mongo Age: 42 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-09-2005 02:49 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | First Giant Squid Captured in Wild (on Film, That Is)
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: September 27, 2005
For decades, scientists and sea explorers have mounted costly expeditions to hunt down and photograph the giant squid, a legendary monster with eyes the size of dinner plates and a nightmarish tangle of tentacles lined with long rows of sucker pads.
The goal has been to learn more about a bizarre creature of no little fame (Jules Verne's giant squid attacked a submarine and Peter Benchley's ate children) that in real life has stubbornly refused to give up its secrets. While giant squid have been snagged in fishing nets, and dead or dying ones have washed ashore, expeditions have repeatedly failed to photograph a live one in its natural habitat, the inky depths of the sea.
But in an article to be published Wednesday in a leading British biological journal, two Japanese scientists, Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori, report that they have made the world's first observations of a giant squid in the wild.
Working some 600 miles south of Tokyo off the Bonin Islands, known in Japan as the Ogasawara Islands, they managed to photograph the creature with a robotic camera at a depth of 3,000 feet. During a struggle lasting more than four hours, the 26-foot-long animal took the proffered bait and eventually broke free, leaving behind an 18-foot length of tentacle.
The giant squid, the researchers conclude, "appears to be a much more active predator than previously suspected, using its elongate feeding tentacles to strike and tangle prey." They report that the tentacles could apparently coil into a ball, much as a python envelops its victims.
The Japanese researchers are reporting their findings on Wednesday in the British publication Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the B standing for the biological sciences. The Royal Society, based in London, is the world's oldest scientific organization.
Scientists praised the discovery as a long-awaited breakthrough.
"This has been a mystery for a thousand years," said Richard Ellis, author of "Monsters of the Sea" (Knopf, 1994). o "Nobody knew what they looked like in the wild. We only saw them dead. These images will open the door to more detailed study of their life."
The squid hunters themselves are agog, and some perhaps a bit jealous.
"Wow!" said Emory Kristof, a photographer for National Geographic who twice ventured to New Zealand in hopes of capturing giant squid on film. "It's always been a presumption to say you're hunting the giant squid when we know so little. It's great that they got it."
The Japanese researchers work for the National Science Museum in Tokyo and the Ogasawara Whale-Watching Association.
They discovered the giant by following packs of sperm whales, which are known to feed on the giant invertebrates. With squid remains being found near the Bonin Islands, the researchers focused the hunt there.
The explorers created a float system with a long line from which they suspended a robotic camera and strobe light. The camera looked downward at hooks baited with a small squids and took pictures every 30 seconds. A bag of mashed shrimps acted as an odor lure. The researchers set up a number of such rigs near the islands.
On Sept. 30, 2004, a squid attacked the lowest bait on a rig that was positioned about 1,000 feet above the seafloor. Giant squid have eight short arms and two long tentacles. During the attack, the squid wrapped its two long tentacles like a ball around the bait, the researchers report.
One of the squid's tentacles was caught, and the creature moved violently in the next four hours to break free. It was often out of camera range, suggesting, the scientists say, that it was attempting to swim free.
After 4 hours 13 minutes of struggle, the animal tore away, leaving a tentacle behind.
At 26 feet, this is a relatively small specimen; giant squid are thought to grow as long as 60 feet. But with DNA analysis and other comparisons with squid that have washed ashore, the researchers confirmed that it was a giant.
The squid is often known by its genus name, Architeuthis (pronounced ark-uh-TOOTH-iss), Greek for chief squid. The researchers say their photos dispel the notion that it is a sluggish creature that trolls for prey.
"The long tentacles are clearly not weak fishing lines dangled below the body," they write. "Our images suggest that giant squids are much more active predators than previously suggested." |
Source
Great pictures:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/photogalleries/giant_squid/
TONMO discussion:
www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4858 |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| RainyOcean Alien Kitty
Peek-A-Boo Joined: 19 May 2004 Total posts: 2006 Location: In my basement making a suit out of human skin Age: 31 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 28-09-2005 05:43 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | LONDON (Reuters) - Japanese scientists have taken the first photographs of one of the most mysterious creatures in the deep ocean -- the giant squid.
ADVERTISEMENT
Until now the only information about the behavior of the creatures which measure up to 18 meters (59 feet) in length has been based on dead or dying squid washed up on shore or captured in commercial fishing nets.
But Tsunemi Kubodera, of the National Science Museum, and Kyoichi Mori of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association, both in Tokyo have captured the first images of Architeuthis attacking bait 900 meters (yards) below the surface in the cold, dark waters of the North Pacific.
"We show the first wild images of a giant squid in its natural environment," they said in a report on Wednesday in the journal Proceedings B of the Royal Society.
Little is known about the creatures because it has been so difficult to locate and study them alive. Large ships and specialist equipment, which is costly, are needed to study deep sea environments.
The Japanese scientists found the squid by following sperm whales, the most effective hunters of giant squid, as they gathered to feed between September and December in the deep waters off the coast of the Ogasawara Islands in the North Pacific.
They used a remote long-line camera and depth logging system to capture the giant squid in the ocean depths.
"The most dramatic character of giant squids is the pair of extremely long tentacles, distinct from the eight shorter arms. The long tentacles make up to two-thirds of the length of the dead specimens to date," the scientists said in the journal.
They added that the giant squid appear to be a much more active predator than researchers had suspected and tangled their prey in their elongated feeding tentacles. |
Pictures at link
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050927/sc_nm/squid_dc |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Anonymous |
| Posted: 28-09-2005 09:25 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
On camera at last: giant squid that left behind a 20ft tentacle
By Hiroko Tabuchi, AP
Published: 28 September 2005
Japanese scientists have photographed a live giant squid in the wild for the first time, ending an age-old quest to document one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep sea.
The team led by Tsunemi Kubodera, from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, tracked the 26-foot-long Architeuthis as it attacked prey at a depth of 3,000 feet off the coast of Japan's Bonin islands.
"We believe this is the first time a grown giant squid has been captured on camera in its natural habitat," said Kyoichi Mori, a marine researcher who co-authored an article on the finding in Wednesday's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
The camera was operated by remote control during research in the fall of 2004, capping a three-year search for the squid around the Bonin islands, 1,000 kilometers (670 miles) south of Tokyo, Mori told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The feat was praised by researchers as an important milestone in observation of the enormous creatures, which appeared in the writings of the ancient Greeks as well as Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea."
"It's the holy grail of deep sea animals," said Jim Barry, a marine biologist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California who has searched for giant squid without luck. "It's one that we have never seen alive, and now someone has video of one."
New Zealand's leading authority on giant squid, marine biologist Steve O'Shea, hailed the Japanese team's feat, although he said the photographs in themselves would probably not advance knowledge about the animals much.
"Our reaction is one of tremendous relief that the so-called ... race is over ... because the animal has consumed the last eight or nine years of my life," he said. O'Shea added that Kubodera's determination in tracking down the animal "is truly commendable. I think it is fantastic."
Mori said the squid, which was purplish red like smaller squid, attacked its quarry aggressively.
"Contrary to belief that the giant squid is relatively inactive, the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey," Mori said.
"It went after some bait that we had on the end of the camera and became stuck, and left behind a tentacle six meters long, " Mori said.
Kubodera, also reached by The AP, said researchers ran DNA tests on the tentacle and found it matched those of other giant squids found around Japan. The animal — which has eight arms and two longer feeding tentacles — was not in danger of dying from the injury, he said.
"Other sightings were of smaller, or very injured squids washed toward the shore — or of parts of a giant squid," Kubodera said. "This is the first time a full-grown, healthy squid has been sighted in its natural environment in deep water."
"I always suspected that giant squid lived in deep water, and that they moved as actively as ordinary squid," Kubodera added. "Our discovery confirms this."
The researcher, however, would make no claims about the scientific significance of his team's work.
"As for the impact our discovery will have on marine research, I'll leave it to other researchers to decide," he said.
Giant squids have long attracted human fascination and imagination, but almost everything scientists know about them has come from dead specimens found beached or floating in the ocean. The largest ones have eyes the size of dinner plates. Scientific interest in the animals has surged in recent years as more specimens have been caught in commercial fishing nets.
Researchers said the quest to learn more about the animals would go on.
O'Shea, who said there were five equally large or larger species of giant squid that have yet to be photographed, has pursued the beasts in the hope of capturing juveniles and raising them successfully in captivity.
O'Shea, the chief marine scientist at the Auckland University of Technology, enclosed 17 of them five years ago, but they died in captivity.
"We are using this charismatic mega fauna to lure people in to ... far more important issues such as conservation ... of these magnificent creatures," he said.
By focusing on the giant squid and protecting it by closing areas of coastal habitat, many smaller species were also being protected from bottom trawling and other fishing methods, he added.
Kubodera said he hoped to get more funding to carry on research, possibly to capture videos of giant squids in the same area. Currently, the project is funded only by the National Science Museum.
The next hunt for the giant squid will be in mid-October, Kubodera said. No giant squid were found in an earlier hunt this month. |
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article315600.ece |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Rubyait Great Old One Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Total posts: 1783 Location: Not telling Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 28-09-2005 15:19 Post subject: |
|
|
|
This same story is on the BBC site as well. I especially liked this bit..
| Quote: | "The grip wasn't as strong as I expected; it felt sticky," he explained.
|
Umm maybe this had something to do with the fact that you had actually removed it from the squid that was 900m down. I dunno a wild guess?!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| gncxx King-Size Canary
Great Old One Joined: 25 Aug 2001 Total posts: 13561 Location: Eh? Gender: Male |
| Posted: 28-09-2005 19:52 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Great pictures, although I expected it to look more elegant rather than flailing around like that. Or perhaps it was flailing around because part of its anatomy was trapped? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| feen5 Don't tread on any mines Joined: 09 Feb 2004 Total posts: 1581 Age: 40 Gender: Male |
| Posted: 29-09-2005 09:44 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | | Or perhaps it was flailing around because part of its anatomy was trapped? |
I don't think any animal or human is going to look its most elegant with one of its limbs or appendages trapped for four and half hours...though i'd pay good money to see George Bush or Tony Blair in the same situation.
I wonder if the japenese are now going to turn there attention to trying to get photos of its larger again cousin, Mesonychoteuthis Hamiltoni, the colossal squid. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Anonymous |
| Posted: 02-10-2005 08:38 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: |
Love in the deep: sex life of the giant squid revealed
By David Randall
Published: 02 October 2005
Scientists used to think that the most chaotic love lives in the world were lived by certain marsupials, supermodels and Premiership footballers. Not any more. New research has emerged which shows that when it comes to an eventful sex life, nothing can compare with a giant squid.
Until recently, little was known of these elusive animals, which live up to 1.5 kilometres down in the pitch-black depths.
But a series of strandings on the Atlantic beaches of Spain have brought five squid to the surface and, with them, revelations about their hitherto secret sexual shenanigans. Be warned: the marine biologists' findings are not for the squeamish.
Consider, courtesy of the team's article in the magazine of the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas, the following: a courting couple, both up to 18 metres long and equipped with eight legs and two tentacles.
In the red corner, a female one-third larger than the male and often distinctly resistant to his advances. In the blue corner, the eager lad, ready to deploy a penis eight feet long.
This is no ordinary eight-foot penis. It is hypodermic, and hence able to pierce the female's arm and impregnate her. It is also, say the scientists from the Institute of Marine Research in Vigo, unable to distinguish between the arm of a female, that of a passing male, or even its own limbs.
Hence, among the five carcasses of Architeuthis dux was a male that had been inseminated, although it is not known whether this was by himself or another who mistook him for a female.
The report is nothing if not explicit on these murky matters: "The male's sexual organ is actually a bit like a high-pressure fire hose and is normally nearly as long as his body, excluding legs and head.
"But having such a big penis does have one drawback: it seems co-ordinating eight legs, two feeding tentacles and a huge penis, whilst fending off an irate female, is a bit too much to ask, and one of the two males stranded had accidentally injected himself with sperm packages in the legs and body." The Spanish report came as Japanese scientists captured the first film of giant squid in the deep. Until now, the 600 or so observed over the past 400 years have been dead or dying ones that had floated to the surface.
But two experts, from the National Science Museum and the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association, both in Japan, took 550 pictures of squid at 900 metres as the cephalopods went for bait dangling beneath a camera.
These images contradicted previous ideas about how the squid caught their prey. It was thought that they hung at mid-depths, languidly trailing their feeding tentacles to catch a meal. But the squid filmed by the Japanese grabbed the bait, then coiled their tentacles around it.
Despite their size, giant squid are not top of the ocean food chain. In some parts of the world, they make up between 30 and 40 per cent of the diet of sperm whales. It is, then, perhaps a good job for their own survival that they keep mating with the enthusiasm that they do.
|
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article316609.ece |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| rynner Location: Still above sea level Gender: Male |
| Posted: 02-10-2005 08:50 Post subject: |
|
|
|
| Quote: | | "But having such a big penis does have one drawback: it seems co-ordinating eight legs, two feeding tentacles and a huge penis, whilst fending off an irate female, is a bit too much to ask, and one of the two males stranded had accidentally injected himself with sperm packages in the legs and body." |
Accidentally?
If the females are so 'irate', perhaps the squid thought "Stuff that for a game of soldiers", and resorted to the do-it-yourself method.
In other words, he was a masturbating mollusc!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| Iggore Customize This !!!
Great Old One Joined: 01 Aug 2005 Total posts: 530 Location: Shmocation Age: 28 Gender: Unknown |
| Posted: 05-10-2005 03:01 Post subject: |
|
|
|
They used to be my favorite crypto. Until readig this thread, especialy the part about sex. You guys completly killed the magic.
I'm goign to settle on the chupa. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
| blakta2 The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out....
Great Old One Joined: 31 Dec 2003 Total posts: 139 Location: huh? Age: 46 Gender: Female |
| Posted: 09-10-2005 10:02 Post subject: |
|
|
|
I havent read the entire Giant Squid thread as yet, but it has been a great interest of mine since I was a teen. Not long ago we had a WILD
Giant Squid experience here in Alaska. Sitka Alaska to be exact. I lived there for 20 years. I absolutely could not believe how it went down considering how long researchers have been praying for one of these elusive Giants to answer some important questions such as how they actually hunt, etc. This Sitka fisherman pulled up a Giant Squid that literally had a huge Halibut in its' clutches and was gnawing on it! The squid was ALIVE and well. He didn't know exactly what the heck was going on so he pulled the damned thing up, gaffed and put the thing on ICE!! He actually cut a chunk from the squid, FRIED IT UP AND ATE IT! Unbelievable...just plain unbelievable. Can you imagine how the scientists and researchers that have made the Giant Squid their lifes work must have felt when they heard this story? Anyhow, here's a link. Read it and weep. I did.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3787/is_200209/ai_n9093659
~Kim~ |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
