Wednesday 30 April 2008

Calamari anyone?


A giant 495kg squid caught in water off Antarctica February 2006 is slowly being thawed and examined more closely by scientists in New Zealand. Dr. S. O'Shea says the giant squid was not fully grown when it was caught and that these giant squid can grow to 750kg. That is one huge amount of calamari to crumb. There has only been 75 of the sea giants found and this particular one great caution has to be taken with the thawing process due to the sheer size as while it will be frozen in the middle, the outside will begin to rot.
The eyes of this Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni (scientific name) measure 27 cm across and you can only see 10cm of the eye from the outside . The enormous squid has the largest eyes known in the animal world.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/080430/2/16o7a.html

Marine biologists are continuing to unlock the secrets of the giant squid, saying the deep-sea monster may not be a cannibal as previously thought.

It was thought the species was cannibalistic when parts of a fellow giant squid were found in the stomach of a specimen caught off Tasmania's west coast in 1999.

But New Zealand based marine biologist Steve O'Shea believes that was the result of some bizarre mating methods.

He says the creatures do not mean to eat each other but the females accidentally bite bits off of the males during mating.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200602/s1563818.htm

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now that is a big squid. The grown version would be something to see.
Interesting article. I enjoyed reading and learning.

jmb said...

Now I think calamari is tough and not at all tasty. This one would be really tough. A great find for the scientists though.

escape said...

that's huge!

Nunyaa said...

Apparently in the first link, the scientists have been sampling another giant squid and they say it is quite palatable, I agree though it might be tough.

James Higham said...

Not a good thing. Can't look at it.

Nunyaa said...

It's only a squid, have you ever eaten them?

CherryPie said...

What an interesting story :-)

I have tried squid and my response is Yuk I am not a fan!

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

That thing looks horrific!

Unknown said...

Squidcam's back!

We're pulling our squid out of formalin and moving it to its new display tank. Watch our scientists live on Wednesday 6 August starting 9am NZ time (USA: Tuesday 2pm to 5pm, UK: Tuesday 10pm), for one day only.
Check out the full programme on our website: http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/squid/