Seen the squid at Te Papa, but still want more on colossal squid?
Then tune into SKY’s Discovery Channel on Sunday 11 January 2009 at 7:30pm to see the New Zealand premiere of the “Colossal Squid” documentary.
The doco was filmed during the great defrost and examination in April last year. The crew came back to film the move of the squid from the thawing/preservation tank to the shiny new display tank in August. Discovery Channel also helped Te Papa with the preservation of the squid.
Brief excerpts from the documentary feature in the exhibition audiovisual but you won’t want to miss this chance to see the documentary in full!
If you don’t catch it on Sunday 11 January the doco re-run times are:
Monday 12 January at 1.30 am
Monday 12 January at 8.30 am
Sunday 18 January at 3.30 pm
The bubbles are just about gone and the squid tank is all clear! You can now get a really good, clear view of this amazing specimen.
Last night we had to close off the squid exhibition for a few hours, during our normal Thursday evening opening hours. The team took out about 600 litres of fluid from the tank, lowering the level of the liquid. They then carefully added the liquid back into the tank using a gravity feed, rather than pumping it in – to avoid adding in any air.
The annoying bubbles had been sticking to the tank lid through surface tension. By changing the liquid out in this way, we’ve managed to get rid of nearly all the bubbles.
It was also a chance for us to have a good look at the squid specimen and check out how it’s doing. The squid was sitting quite close against the lid of the tank, which is not ideal as this may cause damage to the tissues. The liquid changeover has improved things but we will need to keep reviewing things over the next few weeks.
We also took the opportunity to add in some more biocide to the tank liquid, to make sure that no nasty moulds are growing on it!
It seems like New Zealand museums are setting a new trend for staging scientific dissections of big interesting animals and getting the public involved in them online.
It’s a great way to engage visitors with the scientific activities of natural history museums – it takes the behind-the-scenes stuff out into the public arena. And it can be a real boost to public knowledge and understanding about animal biology and conservation.
Today Auckland Museum is holding a dissection of a Great White Shark and you can view it on their website from 2pm. The necropsy, or animal autopsy, will raise public awareness of this magnificent, and vulnerable fish species.
Here at Te Papa we have also had great success with making some recent scientific examinations and dissections available online. In April 2008 a team of scientists thawed and examined a colossal squid, but didn’t dissect it. This is the colossal squid now on display , along with lots of info explaining it’s anatomy. While the team examined the big colossal squid specimen they dissected a smaller, incomplete colossal squid specimen and a giant squid specimen and blogged about it live. The information we got from dissecting these other big squid specimens was vital to understanding the biology of the colossal squid, and then communicating this in the exhibition.
After the success of the squid investigations we then decided to blog about a dissection of a pygmy right whale in May 2008. Looking at our blog stats we still have heaps of people going to these posts about the pygmy right whale heart and lungs – somewhat strange, but true. I’m not sure why these posts would be so popular - so if anyone out there knows please tell me!
Then in July 2008 the Melbourne Museum held a public dissection of a giant squid, which you can view here.
From big molluscs we have now moved on to big fish! It’s great to see these new ways of communicating science in museums being explored and our museum-based scientists taking centre stage - I’m interested to know what others think about this.
It’s the seventh day into the New Year, 2009, and the colossal squid continues to attract a huge crowd of visitors every day. We just love how much you are loving it!
We now have more than 23,000 wonderfully creative squid made on Build a Squid. More than 10,800 say they’re from the USA and there’s 6,000 squid from New Zealand.
Nicolai from Hawai’i wants to know how old the oldest squid is. Well, the first ones were made around or a bit before 13 December, so the oldest is now about 26 days old. Here are two squid you can follow:
“LucyRyan” from New Zealand who is now 26 days old, weighs 12 kg and has travelled 234 km. Today she is searching for a t-shirt with ten sleeves…
“Pamela” from New Zealand who is slightly younger at 23 days old, weighs 10 kg and has travelled 207 km – and has just seen a submarine.
The squid you see that are 0 days old are new ones made each day by visitors to the exhibition itself as well as online users. Te Papa is open 365 days of the year, including Christmas Day!
We’ll be working on plans for the Build a Squid interactive in the next few weeks. At the moment all the squid stay up and keep having more adventures.
On the bubble front it’s good to see that the troublesome bubbles in the tank have cleared quite a bit over the last two weeks. We’ll also be lowering the liquid level in the squid tank tomorrow evening and then carefully filling it up again.
We hope this will clear away the remaining bubbles and give everyone a bubble-free view of the world’s biggest invertebrate.
know that you’re Twittering about it as well be a huge hit. a.
24 December 2008 – 11.21am
Kia ora koutou
It’s Christmas time at Te Papa and the team behind the colossal squid exhibition wishes squid fans everywhere a happy and safe time over the holidays.
It’s been a colossal year in many ways – and we’ve finished it by bringing to you the only display in the world of a colossal squid.
We know some of you are disappointed that the squid isn’t bigger! Some of you think we’ve got a bigger and better colossal squid out the back somewhere.
But no! this is our biggest colossal squid. It’s not a giant squid remember. A giant squid is a completely different kind of squid, called Architeuthis dux.
We think our colossal squid is big enough. She weighs 495 kilograms – which is about 660 Christmas puddings or more than 1,000 pavlovas.
The colossal squid is also a special creature because at this time of year it reminds us of the planet we share, the things we still have to discover about it and our need to care for it in the future.
Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to everyone!
18 December 2008 – 12.52pm
There are bubbles in the colossal squid tank!!! It’s not what we intended and we know that they may be interfering with your view of our big squid.
So why are the bubbles there and why can’t we get rid of them?
It’s not that easy to answer – you have to know a bit about the physics of bubbles, and what happens when you mix liquids which have dissolved gases in them. Te Papa’s Conservator Robert Clendon has been trying to explain it to me this morning, but my physics is a bit rusty – anyway here goes.
The tank that the squid is in contains a liquid mix of glycol and water. This is a preservative to stop the squid specimen from rotting. With a liquid that has dissolved gases in it the gas will start to come out and form bubbles. The bubbles then tend to stick to any tiny rough bits, or abrasions. Surprisingly enough the surface of the thick, acrylic lid of the tank is covered in these microabrasions. When you mix glycol and water together (as we’ve done) the water can’t hold as much dissolved air and bubbles start to form.
Usually we would leave the glycol and water mix for a good length of time to allow the bubbles to escape. When we first put the squid in the tank, filled it up and put the lid on there were hardly any bubbles at all – it was perfect!
However we had a problem with the tank at the last minute – one day before opening. We had to lift the lid off the tank, fix the problem and then top up the liquid. Time was against us to make the opening on Saturday and as a result…. we’ve got bubbles.
The bubbles are sitting under the curved lid of the tank. The small bubbles are gradually joining together (coalescing) to make bigger bubbles. When the bubbles are big enough they run off to the side of the tank and escape through the built-in tank vents.
The tank does have an internal pump system but it is very gentle as we don’t want to disturb the squid specimen too much. Robert is confident that the bubbles will go – but slowly. After all the whole tank and squid display is experimental and we are learning a lot through the process.
We’ll be watching the bubbles situation over the Christmas period and if it doesn’t improve we have a plan…. a cunning one.
17 December 2008 – 5.09pm
The colossal squid has many fans, and I think the numbers are increasing daily.
Thanks to The Sidestrip you can now see a great video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rRQFCETMX4
And Te Papa is now “resting place of the world’s largest eye” – we like!
If you’ve been to see the squid please tell us what you think.
Oh, and we now have 3,233 squid on Build a Squid! Great, keep them coming!
14 December 2008 – 7.54am
13 December 2008 – 12.47pm
At last, the day you’ve been waiting for!!! – here at Te Papa you can finally come and see the colossal squid on display for yourself.
It’s not even 2pm in the afternoon and heaps of people have already come to see her.
Te Papa is filled to bursting with squid fans and squid events so come along if you can this weekend and join in the squid fun.
If you’re too busy Christmas shopping or not even in New Zealand you can still take part. Visit our special squid site and do the Build a Squid game.
Build a Squid, at Te Papa's Colossal Squid exhibition
You can make your own squid online, give it a name and set it free. And then you can come back and find it again…. I’ve just checked and there are now 422 named squid, and about 320 from New Zealand, all embarked on squiddy adventures.
Personal favourite so far? – Ood from Antarctica!!!
Yep, it’s true – you really can have fun with squid 
11 December 2008 – 12.55pm
Almost there and I was rapt to get the finalised event programme for this weekend’s opening. Our events team have done an amazing job – balancing hard science with fun, informative events for all.
Dr Steve O’Shea is back in the house talking about the importance of our specimen to the science world with TV3′s fishing guru, Graeme Sinclair.
Te Papa’s own Chris Paulin will be showing how we got from an ice cube to an exhibit!
Also, squid dissections (arrow squid, mind you!), storytelling and craft activities for the young and old.
And the best thing is that all the events are FREE.
