* Word of warning....I had one bite me in the palm of my hand at the base of the thumb and his little beak took out a piece of flesh about the size of a match head. Not only did it hurt, it took a long time to heal...I guess it was just that fact that he took out a little chunk instead of just biting. I was out at night for flounder in a small boat and he miscalculated his jump and ended up in the boat with me. Even the little guys make great calamari if they are not sauteed too long. Most people over-cook them and they turn into leather. In this dog-eat-dog world, I thought it only fair that the squid that bit me became part of my lunch.
On a lighter note, as I looked out from the bridge and saw a couple of my deckhands "squid skating" on a wet deck. They tied squid onto the soles of their shoes and from there on they were "slime skating"....a lot like ice skating, proving that squid have many uses.
I know that I’m responding to an older post, but I just happened to watch a really good presentation on the Humboldt Squid today. You can feel free to skip the Q&A at the end with it’s ‘humanity is screwing everything up’ overtones, but the balance of it is pretty good info from one Capt. Scott Cassell, who’s probably spent more time in the water with these things than anyone else alive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4iDQsXIi3I
Some key points:
*They’re extremely opportunistic predators, and will eat anything, including each other and there are now known cases of people getting killed by them
*They breed and grow at a fantastic rate
*Their natural predators are fewer in number than before
*Their habitat is rapidly expanding, and now includes pretty much the entire Pacific Coast
Points of interest
*Three hearts
*Blood is blue when oxygenated and clear when it’s not
*The ‘light show’ multicolored aspect of their appearance, is wired directly to their brains, without first passing through a central nervous system
*They’re scary smart