Giant Squid

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The squid measures nearly 30 feet long and weighs 222 pounds. It was found tangled in the fishermen's nets. It had already died.

There have only been 300 confirmed sightings of giant squids over the past 500 years. None have ever been seen alive.

The creatures usually live at depths of more than 660 feet, but sometimes surface to feed on fishermen's bait.

Smaller squid are considered a delicacy, but giant squid are inedible because their bodies contain a high concentration of ammonia, which helps them survive in deeper waters.

The squid will be turned over to the Canary Islands Institute of Science for research and will eventually be put on display at a local museum.

The largest giant squid ever found was nearly 60 feet long and weighed 2,000 pounds.

Its big...but i want BIGGER...like take down a ship big...lol...and I KNOW theyre out there somewhere...

I've seen one, in a museum here in Portugal.

It is 8.2m (27 ft) long and weighs 207Kgs (456 pounds) and it was captured also by the nets in a fishing boat, in 1972.

Giant Squid are indeed very intriguing and one of the few wonders of the world yet to be fully examined and documented. It seems the ocean is where all th mystery of the world lies in wait for humans to explore. We are so occupied with space that we forget things like this still remain on earth.

The Giant Squid , that sucker has a much nastier older brother which can literally tear prey to pieces.

Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni is reputed to attain a greater size than the giant squid (Architeuthis dux). Oddly enough, few people are aware of its existence. Living at depths in excess of 1000 m, and temperatures near freezing in Antarctic waters, adults of this species are exceedingly rare (in collections). Because the environment in which it lives has been so poorly sampled, its life history, diet and behaviour are unknown.

Unique characters
The tentacle club, the expanded distal portion of the tentacle, is endowed with two rows of swiveling hooks (Fig. 3)


The beaks are the largest known of any squid (Fig. 9), exceeding those of Architeuthis in size and robustness


The eyes are probably the largest in the animal kingdom (even larger than those of Architeuthis)


The relatively short arms are endowed with a combination of hooks and suckers.
Number of adult specimens reported: 6 (all but one recovered from sperm whale stomachs). Juveniles are not uncommon from surface waters to ~ 1000 m depth.





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Originally posted by BasementAddix
Its big...but i want BIGGER...like take down a ship big...lol...and I KNOW theyre out there somewhere...

Sperm whales stranded on beaches and caught by whaling ships bear circular scars inflicted by the powerful suckers of giant squid. The size of the scars has led some to estimate the size of squid eaten by the whales. Scars as large as 20 cm were reported and some believed it would take a 75 meter long squid to bear such a sucker!

Since most of the Squids that have been found have suckers that are not bigger have about 5cm suckers There might be some huge Kraken sized monster squids out there.

The problem, and maybe our luck, is they are made for great depths and great pressures, and they cannot come to the surface. Some fishermen said that sometimes they saw creatures like that appear at the surface and then explode.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

Originally posted by BasementAddix

Sperm whales stranded on beaches and caught by whaling ships bear circular scars inflicted by the powerful suckers of giant squid. The size of the scars has led some to estimate the size of squid eaten by the whales. Scars as large as 20 cm were reported and some believed it would take a 75 meter long squid to bear such a sucker!

Since most of the Squids that have been found have suckers that are not bigger have about 5cm suckers There might be some huge Kraken sized monster squids out there.

I read recently that the scars are so big because as the whale has grown in size so have the scars. If squids did grow to 75m then it is highly doubtful that a whale would survive an attack, especially since a squid of this size would be able to drown the largets whales.

Thats a good point about the sucker scars. I wonder if there is a way to tell a fresh one from one that has been there for a long time. Now a 20 inch fresh scar that would be scary

Something that big would have to eat whales to survive

Did anyone see the show on the Discovery channel about giant squids? One segment was particularly cool, or scary. They showed a U.S. destroyer that was on patrol and they thought they had hit a whale or something and it damaged their sonar dome mounted on the ships keel towards the bow. Aywho, when they checked the damage to the rubber covering on the sonar dome the divers picked a couple of 2 or 3 inch claw/hooks from it. They were identintified as having come from the giant squid, that squid was estimated to top out at about 100 feet long. Wow.

I have read of a tanker in the Pacific, which was supposedely attacked by 2-3 squids. Of course they were to small to do much to the tanker and they were torn up in the screws.

I just found this story about a Giant Squid attack , it attacked a French yacht in get this the round-the-world ''Jules Verne'' Trophy race.

"I saw a tentacle through a porthole," Olivier de Kersauson said from his boat. "It was thicker than my leg and it was really pulling the boat hard."

Man you cant make this stuff up

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