The giant of the deep

As you might have guessed from my various postings through the months, I like to write about animals. There are so many things about them that I find interesting – the purring of cats, lizards whose appearance hasn’t changed in a million years, goats that randomly fall over when they are startled, how kangaroos can’t walk backwards, and how, ounce for ounce, bats are one of the longest living mammals on earth. Well, today I’d like to talk about an animal that no one knows very much about, but one that I have found fascinating ever since I first heard about it. This creature is one of the great animal mysteries of the world – we know that it exists, but short of that, we know relatively little about it at all. The animal in question – Architeuthis. The giant squid.

What is a giant squid? Since it is not very creatively named, you’ve probably guessed that it’s simply a really, really big squid. But how big is it? How does it get so big? Where does it live? And why do we know so little about it?

First, let’s discuss squid and octopus in general. Your basic squid has a few standard anatomical features – 8 arms and 2 tentacles, each with hooks and/or suckers, a head (with a very large brain), a mantle (or torso), and 2 fins at the rear of the mantle. Your basic octopus is the same, except that it doesn’t usually have fins, and it’s arms and tentacles only have suckers, not hooks. (There are a few species of octopus with fins, however; they live off the coast of New Zealand and are considered primitive relative to other octopus. That’s why they are referred to as “Dumbo octopus.”) The tentacles of squid are generally much longer than the arms. In fact, there are 2 ways to measure the length of a squid. You can either measure the standard length, which is the length from fins to the end of the arms, or total length, which is the length of the fins to the tentacles. Most squid are quite small, reaching an average total length of almost 2 feet. Of course, that’s the size of most squid – except for the giant squid.

How big a giant squid can get is a matter of debate, since they are so hard to find. The largest reported giant squid ever found washed up in New Zealand in 1887, supposedly at a total length of 55 feet. However, since it was dead, it is likely that its tentacles became stretched like rubber bands once it died and washed up. Based on the length of its mantle, it is now believed to have been only around 30 feet long. Scientists now generally base their estimates of how big a giant squid can get on the remnants of them found in the stomachs of their only known predators, sperm whales. Based on these leftovers, it is now believed that they can reach up to 45 feet in total length. The only invertebrate believed to be larger than the giant squid, actually, is its cousin, the colossal squid (which may be twice as long).

Giant squid live in the depths of every ocean in the world. They are usually found near continental and island slopes of the North Atlantic, the South Atlantic, and New Zealand and Australia, and are rarely seen in tropical waters or near the poles. Unfortunately for scientists, they are often studied after they’ve died, whether they’ve washed up on a beach or are taken out in pieces from a sperm whale’s stomach. In 2004, however, major news was made when scientists off the coast of Japan filmed a live giant squid for the first time ever in its natural habitat. Finding live giant squid in the ocean is notoriously difficult. Scientists usually try to follow sperm whales in the hopes of finding one, but that has proved relatively fruitless. Unless we come up with a better way of finding these elusive giants, they might remain a mystery for some time to come.

Of course, just because we don’t know a lot about them scientifically hasn’t stopped us from using our imaginations to envision them. Giant squid have been a source of legend for thousands of years. Tales of them have been around among mariners since ancient times. In fact, it is believed that the giant squid probably gave rise to the legend of the kraken - a giant sea monster off the coast of Norway and Iceland that was capable of engulfing entire ships (and one that you might remember from the recent Hollywood blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man’s Chest").

I don’t know why I find these creatures so intriguing, to be honest. Perhaps it’s simply because of their mystery. Imagine – an enormous creature, swimming in the depths of the ocean, so well adapted to its environment that we can’t even find it. Something so large that it only has one predator it needs to fear. And something that, unlike sharks, has not successfully been made into the villain of a Hollywood movie plot such that we feel the need to hunt it down and kill it. Maybe someday we’ll know more about this giant animal. Until then, I must say that I kind of like the uncertainty.