Hey thanks for responding with which photos you are after. I will try my best to get you the ones you want. Monty, I think you asked ïf you could browse thumbnails – maybe a Flickr site might be a good idea but I will have to check with the powers that be!
In the meantime here is the beak and the eye – I’ll do the muscles in a new post.
Beak of large Colossal Squid
Also see Kat’s great post on this -
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2008/04/30/whats-all-this-beak-business/
Eye of large Colossal Squid
See Eric’s great post on the eye
http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2008/04/30/the-eye/
18 Comments
My four-year-old daughter and I are following your blog from Cape Town, South Africa. It’s absolutely fascinating, thank you.
We’ve noticed that the water around the squid is starting to look a bit brown… is it getting stinky in there?!
Thanks for the close up of the eye. Imagine a huge eye like that looking at you in the dark! LOL
My son (4yo) has a question which I wasn’t sure about: what colour blood does it have? I assume it does have blood or some kind of fluid, but is it clear or red like ours? Could you explain a bit more about the blood?
Thanks for the pics, and for looking into flickr! You guys are amazing. The eye is really amazing, I’m really looking forward to the podcast about vision in the deep sea, too, and of course the others as well.
I can give a partial answer on the blood, too: cephalopods use copper-based hemocyanin (sometimes spelled haemocyanin) to carry oxygen in their blood, unlike us vertebrates, who use hemoglobin (or haemoglobin) which is iron-based. The squids’
hemocyanin is blueish in color, at least when it’s attached to oxygen… so unlike our blood that turns from blue to red it’s carrying oxygen, a squid’s blood is blue when it’s oxygenated (wikipeda says it’s “colorless” when it’s not oxygenated.) I’m sure the teuthologists can fill in more details, but maybe that’s a start…
Thanks, Mark, for the info. Blue is definitely better than white or colourless for a four year old boy
He even wanted fried squid (to dissect and eat) for lunch today!
When I saw this article, it caught my eye (so to speak)….if I remember correctly we also have a giant squid that was found in our waters in Newfoundland…I am excited to see this story unfold….
this site makes me hungry. Keep up the great work and I’ll keep trackin’ this squid
I understand that scientists now believe that we will begin to see more and more of these giant creatures as the ocean’s temperatures rise with Global Warming. In fact, I believe I read that one day, it won’t be possible to swim anywhere in Florida because of the risk of being swallowed by the swarms of giant and collosal squid. Chalk up another degradation of human life to Bush/Cheney.
You have no idea how excited I am to find this blog.
I love squid! They are my art muse!
The beak picture is amazing.
I’ll be checking back quite often!
Sorry, a novice here trying to gain new information . . . but where is the beak on a squid?
Don’t worry J.D., Al Gore will save us from the swarms of giant squid that will, “in fact”, attack us, “in” Florida…..
If proportionally figured, what would be the approx. size and weight, tentacles, eye, etc. of the squid that had the 49 cm beak found before in a Whales stomach.??? Also how is the age and future growth potential figured for a specimen discovered??
All I can say is WOW , for all of you and the Captain of the ship that preserved it.. Thank You All !!!
Mark – will you be dissecting the giant axon? colleagues and I have been dissecting giant axons in loligo at the marine biology labs in Woods Hole – these “giant” axons are actually not so giant (we remove the axoplasm and get about 5 ul/axon)- I’d love to see what a giant axon from a giant squid looks like – perhaps you can climb inside!
This has been great to follow… I feel sorry that it turned out to be a female with eggs though. Thanks to everyone for the photos, thoughts etc.
This is so awesome. And terrifying.
J.D., J.D., sigh. I do believe that Florida waters are much to shallow for such creatures, as well as much too warm. Anyone, please, feel free to correct me on this but, it would seem to me that the warmer the seas might become, such species as the giants and the colossals will seek deeper, cooler waters. Fat chance of that anywhere near the Southeastern United States, I would imagine. And again, correct me if I am amiss. “Learning” just happens to be a hobby of mine, and I am not above correction.
Most respectfully, JD,
Dakota
ref msge 9 the squid beak is in the centre of the arms/tentacles (all the better to eat you with!)
Giants are deepwater but Colossals come to the surface, but they seem to have an Antarctic to sub antarctic (maybe) distribution…so sorry I don’t think you’ll be seeing them in Florida anytime soon!
There is a picture of the anatomy of a colossal squid on our website – sorry for the huge url!
http://www.tepapa.govt.nz/TePapa/English/CollectionsAndResearch/CollectionAreas/NaturalEnvironment/Molluscs/ColossalSquid/BiologyOfColossalSquid.htm
Finally! A good use of the internet! Keep up the good work, this is one of the most interesting things to have happened in our lifetime. And, to think we share this Earth with creatures we know so little about. Peace.
-brad
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