Posted on 02/22/2007 12:51:48 AM PST by Stoat
New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea have caught what's thought to be the largest squid ever found.
Its estimated weight is about 450 kilograms.
The species is known as the colossal squid, shorter but much heavier than the better known giant squid.
It was hauled to the surface while munching on one of its favourite foods, a Patagonian toothfish which the fishermen had hooked on a longline.
Dr Steve O'Shea, from the Auckland University of Technology, says the previous largest find weighed 300 kilograms.
He says if calamari were made from the squid the rings would be the size of tractor tyres.
The squid was caught three weeks ago, but the find was only announced today.
Geoff Dolan, an observer with New Zealand's Ministry of Fisheries, was aboard the vessel San Aspiring, owned by the Sanford seafood company, when the squid was hauled aboard.
"There was quite a lot of excitement onboard ... the decision was taken that the chances of survival were not good, and in the interests of science it should be taken on board," Dolan said.
Sanford's deepwater division manager Greg Johansson said the squid was barely alive when it was pulled aboard.
"It was deemed that is was more valuable to science," Johansson said.
The squid was taken below deck and stored in a 1200 litre capacity bin, before it was frozen.
It has since been transferred to one of the company's coolrooms in Timaru, on New Zealand's South Island.
It will ultimately end up at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, where it will be preserved for scientific study.
Colossal squid were first described in 1925 after two tentacles were found in the stomach of a sperm whale.
The creatures live in an area from Antarctica to the southern extremities of South America, South Africa and New Zealand, a statement from the New Zealand government said.
It said few colossal squid have been sighted, with one was caught in the net of a Russian trawler in the Ross Sea in 1981, another found near the surface in 2003, and another near South Georgia Island in the Southern Atlantic ocean on a toothfish longline last year.
LOL
I'm guessing that the squid had an imbalance problem whilst swimming and took proactive steps to correct it :-)
This could be likened to orthopedic shoes in humans.
Am I the only one who's always sort of disappointed by the size of these real-life giant squids? Too much Jules Verne and Johnny Quest growing up?
Although I've been hearing reports that this particular specimen is 39 feet long, I agree that it's not of the scale as suggested by popular fantasy. Those of us hoping for a battleship-sized squid can remain optimistic, however, because we have yet to fully explore the greatest depths of the ocean and I will wager that many more surprises await us still.
Gesundheit...
Yeah, I was kind of hoping for a fight between a squid and a los Angeles attack sub.
More importantly...I wonder how many times they've sampled...us? Didn't I hear of a giant squid attack on a man just a few weeks ago? Possibly recorded on video?
Damn, I really miss the original Johnny Quest. What a great show! Name me another show where guns are shown as being positive especially to kids. I remember one show where the kids were on a boat traveling up the amazon river and attacked by crocs. Everybody got a semi-auto rifle to fend the critters off, including Hadji and Johnny! I wonder if they're available on DVD?
Holy Cthulu!
That's because it IS a body - a squid body.
Lemme see . . you got your fried squid, your boiled squid, your baked squid, your roasted squid, your barbecued squid, your sauteed squid, your squid salad, your squid scampi, your sushi squid, your toasted squid, your sweet and sour squid, your squid kebobs, your broiled squid, your shrimp and squid delight, your squid chowder . . . and that's about it for me . . I think I'll get me a squid boat when I retire and call my company Twinkie's Squid Company (after Bubba's Shrimp Co. in "Forrest Gump") . . anyone else have a squid recipe they can share? . . all that squid meat going to waste in a museum . . . what a shame!
Amazon.com Jonny Quest - The Complete First Season DVD Charles A. Nichols
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Be advised that another DVD is available which is from the 1990's Jonny Quest spinoff but is titled in a confusing way that suggests it is the 1964 version.
This one is *almost* an X-Planets topic. :')
Wow.
You're quite welcome, and I'm delighted that you've found them to be interesting and worthwhile :-)
That is one nasty, huge monster.
Yes, I'm very happy that they live down in the very deepest depths of the oceans and won't be bothering me as I scuba dive :-)
,,, NZ's Prime Minister, Helen Clark, is caning the Japanese at present over whaling in the same waters while her country's fleet are pulling up rare Patagonian tooth fish. Don't you love it?!!!
,,, I never had sex with that squid's bottom. Can you define "bottom"?
I know that's Klintonesque but it had to be said in defense of what honour I have left.
Whoa. The Colossal Squid's testicles would rip a human apart.
"Cough"
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