Giant Squid, Elusive Creature of the Deep, Gets a Vivid Close-Up | Hacker News Reader

Giant Squid, Elusive Creature of the Deep, Gets a Vivid Close-Up

nytimes.com

68 pointsazatris15 comments

I was recently at a museum in Adelaide, Australia, which featured a scale giant squid exhibit. Story goes the museum cleared out a shaft for a new elevator but apparently the British manufacturers made a sizing mistake and an entirely new shaft and elevator had to be made, the question being what to do with the old one. Apparently a friend of the museum just happened to have a giant squid model on hand and donated it. The entire display stands at a length of four stories.

Imagine that, coming to the ground floor and seeing the ends of the longest tentacles. You walk up three stories and you still haven't even reached the full height. Then imagine literally running into one of those incredibly long tentacles at ocean depths far beyond the faintest traces of sunlight. Terrifying.

>> They can be as big as a bus, or even bigger, and yet the elusive giant squid has hardly been spotted swimming alive in the ocean.

It's hard to read past such a false statement. A couple of their arms are perhaps longer than a small bus, but nowhere near "bigger". It isn't even the biggest squid (see the Colossal Squid).

Articles mentioning footage of live specimens should also note that they are almost universally ill, near death when filmed. They do not belong near the surface. Despite their size, these are short-lived and delicate animals prone to injury.

Also, live specimens have been captured as far back as 2002. So all this talk of "first time" footage is a little disingenuous. Researchers had them swimming in tanks aboard ship more than a decade ago.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110710133329/http://animal.dis...

The CNN report source sounds more reliable

There is a large range of bus sizes, a 40' giant squid would look larger than a small bus ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_bus#/media/File:Blue_Bi... or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Bird_Micro_Bird#/media/Fi.... But smaller than an extra large 97 seat school bus.

I think the point is that 'bigger' implies that the squid is actually larger than a bus, not just longer in one dimension. By the logic of the article, I have a garden hose that's bigger than a bus.

In the water with legs akimbo, it's going to be longer, wider, and taller than a small bus. http://www.animalstown.com/animals/s/squid/wallpapers/squid-...

Sure, there would be a lot of space between the legs and it's still fairly light. But, visually in the water a 40+' squid going to look huge.

Exactly. The bit that is longer isn't much thicker than your garden hose. Those arms are barely arms, with so little muscle they are often severed when these things grab fish caught on hooks/nets. The latest theory is that they are more feelers than arms. The squid doesn't grab prey and pull with the long arms, more it grabs then swims/jets towards the arms.

Beautiful! Things like this are one of the upsides of the proliferation of cheap cameras - rare sights that would previously go unreported or disbelieved can be easily captured. (Though it's not doing wonders for my holdout belief in Bigfoot.)

Science question here: what's the slit between the squid's mantle (upper body) and the eye? Is that an injury?

Nah, this slit is the only normal thing about this animal.

What isn't normal about it? (Aside from the fact that it's a nominally deep sea creature in a littoral zone in this instance.)

It is dying and/or much of its flesh is already dead. They should not be white. Even if healthy, those eyes are probably blind in such light. I doubt this animal is capable of reacting to much of anything.

AFAIK this statement is 100% wrong. The Architeuthis, while slow moving, looked totally healthy to the diver and bystanders that looked at it, as well as to this amateur teuthologist (look it up). It sprayed some ink and did exploratory movements with its tentacles that suggested it was confused rather than sick, and while docile, moved on its own throughout all the (five) different videos I saw. Almost certainly a juvenile, it is nonetheless in much warmer and lighter waters that where it lives, which would explain the constricted size of the eyes. The mottled colors are just one of many looks this awesome animal presents to the world, reflecting stress perhaps but not an indication of ill health at all.

Sandworm is right. This is obviously an agonizing squid.

The slit is a water intake and valve for its propulsion and breathing system. It has two with cartilage rims to provide support while opening on the intake and remaining closed as water is pushed out its siphon. Dissected plenty in biology class and while baiting drop lines.

First photos of a live specimen snapped in 2005 and only a few sightings since. It really reinforces that not all of nature has been discovered by humans and there is still much need for exploration.

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