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Giant Squid (Architeuthis)

Will it be preserved and go to a museum?

It's been recovered by a South African museum ...

After uploading a few images to social media, Grosse ... was able to connect with Wayne Florence, curator of marine invertebrates at Iziko Museums of South Africa. Florence and his team collected the squid and are now storing it at a freezer facility until they can properly study its DNA and anatomy once the COVID-19 lockdown ends, according to a statement from the museum. ...

The newfound squid will be the 20th in the collection at Iziko, which has the largest collection of giant squid in Africa. Iziko's largest squid is 30.5 feet (9.3 m) long, or more than twice the length of its latest addition, the museum noted in the statement.

https://www.livescience.com/giant-squid-found-south-africa.html
 
No no no, mighty Cthulhu is sending them, as a warning. Haven't you been experiencing the strange dreams at night like the rest of us?
... No...?
 
How to photograph a giant squid
How One Group of Scientists Managed to Film a Live Kraken — Twice!
Paul SeaburnMay 5, 2021
If you’re here for bitcoin advice on the Kraken exchange, you’re come to the wrong place … but stay anyway because this is about something more elusive that the secrets of bitcoin riches – a new study reveals how a group of marine biologists managed to twice capture footage of live Krakens, the giant squids that created the myths of the monsters that ate Norse ships. Before you run out to buy an underwater camera and book a diving trip to Greenland, you may want to find out why it’s so difficult.

“Knowledge of the behaviour, distribution, and abundance of these species is therefore a key component to understanding deep-sea ecosystems.”
etc
https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2021...ientists-managed-to-film-a-live-kraken-twice/

The published study
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967063721000777
 
How to photograph a giant squid
This ScienceAlert article provides more details on how the researchers used a passive artificial bait to attract the squid.
First-of-Its-Kind Video Shows Giant Squid Hunt Their Prey Deep in The Ocean

The enigmatic giant squid is rarely observed in its natural habitat. In the first videos of their kind, marine scientists have caught its hunting behavior in the wild - revealing for the first time how these monsters of the deep stalk and attack their prey. ...

Interestingly, the encounters suggest strongly that the squid are visual hunters, ignoring olfactory bait that had been placed nearby in favor of visual signals.

The giant squid's hunting behavior was perhaps the most fascinating. It tracked the platform for around six minutes prior to attacking, suggesting that it was stalking its prey before moving in for the kill. ...
FULL STORY: Original link is obsolete. See later post for updated details.

Here's the YouTube video illustrating the squid stalking and attack behaviors they observed.

 
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Ultra-rare nine-foot squid washes up on Japanese beach.

It was unusual for a giant squid to be washed ashore alive, officials say.

A giant squid, measuring about 9.8ft, has been sighted on a beach in Japan.

The squid was found stranded at Ugu beach in Obama of Fukui Prefecture, at 10am local time Wednesday in what local authorities described as a rare sighting.

The giant squid was found alive, Japanese newspaper Mainichi reported, citing Obama Municipal Government.

“It is unusual for a giant squid to be washed ashore alive,” an official told the newspaper.

The video of the massive squid showed the cephalopod swimming in shallow waters on the beach as two officials took measurements.

The squid would be transported to Echizen Matsushima Aquarium in the prefectural city of Sakai.

Squids of this length are deep sea-dwelling creatures. A more elusive squid, measuring 24ft was caught by scientists at Japan’s National Science Museum and brought to the surface in 2006, according to National Geographic. The first images of that female squid were first taken in 2004.
(C) The Independent. '22
 

lsn’t this your normal reaction to squid?

10253893_gal.jpg


maximus otter
 
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This ScienceAlert article provides more details on how the researchers used a passive artificial bait to attract the squid.
FULL STORY: Original link is obsolete. See later post for updated details. ...

This ScienceAlert article has been recently updated. The original version is no longer accessible, so I'm not sure what's been added. I suspect it's at least a link to the published report.

First-of-Its-Kind Video Shows How Giant Squid Hunt Their Prey Deep in The Ocean

The research was published in Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers.
A version of this article was first published in May 2021.
FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/first-...giant-squid-hunt-their-prey-deep-in-the-ocean
 
Here are the bibliographic details and abstract from the published study cited in the updated ScienceAlert article. The full report is accessible at the link below.


Nathan J. Robinson, Sönke Johnsen, Annabelle Brooks, Lee Frey, Heather Judkins, Michael Vecchione, Edith Widder
Studying the swift, smart, and shy: Unobtrusive camera-platforms for observing large deep-sea squid,
Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers, Volume 172, 2021, 103538, ISSN 0967-0637,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr.2021.103538.

Abstract:
The legend of the “kraken” has captivated humans for millennia, yet our knowledge of the large deep-sea cephalopods that inspired this myth remains limited. Conventional methods for exploring the deep sea, including the use of nets, manned submersibles, and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), are primarily suited for studying slow-moving or sessile organisms, and baited camera-traps tend to attract scavengers rather than predators. To address these issues, unobtrusive deep-sea camera platforms were developed that used low-light cameras, red illuminators, and bioluminescence-mimicking lures. Here, we report on several opportunistic deployments of these devices in the Wider Caribbean Region where we recorded several encounters with large deep-sea squids, including the giant squid Architeuthis dux Steenstrup 1857, Pholidoteuthis adami Voss 1956, and two large squid that may be Promachoteuthis sp. (possibly P. sloani Young et al. 2006). These species were recorded between depths of 557 and 950 m. We estimate the Mantle Lengths (ML) of Promachoteuthis were ~1.0 m, the ML of the Pholidoteuthis was ~0.5 m, and the ML of the Archtiteuthis was ~1.7 m. These encounters suggest that unobtrusive camera platforms with luminescent lures are effective tools for attracting and studying large deep-sea squids.
Keywords: Architeuthis; Promachoteuthis; Pholidoteuthis; Cephalopod; Gulf of Mexico; Pelagic; Twilight zone; Medusa; Eye-in-the-sea

SOURCE / FULL REPORT: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967063721000777
 
Another giant squid has washed ashore on a South African beach.
Giant 'kraken' carcass with dinner plate-size eyes washes ashore in South Africa

The massive, sucker-covered carcass of a giant squid washed onto the rocky shore of Scarborough Beach in Cape Town, South Africa, Tuesday (Aug. 16). The beast, which measured nearly 14 feet (4.3 meters) long, was the second giant squid to crop up on a beach in the region this year, according to the South African news site news24 (opens in new tab).

The last known giant squid (Architeuthis dux) to wash ashore near Cape Town showed up about 6 miles (10 kilometers) northwest of Scarborough Beach, on Long Beach in Kommetjie, on April 30, Live Science previously reported. That cephalopod measured roughly 11.5 feet (3.5 m) long. For comparison, the largest giant squid ever seen measured a whopping 43 feet (13 m) long, and some studies suggest that the creatures could potentially reach 66 feet (20 m) long, although no squid of such size has ever been spotted.

The squid that washed onto Scarborough Beach this week seemed to be another A. dux specimen
FULL STORY (With Photo): https://www.livescience.com/giant-squid-cape-town-beach
 
A giant squid carcass with half-eaten tentacles was discovered on a New Zealand beach.

GiantSquid-NZ-2209.jpg
Giant squid corpse with half-eaten tentacles stuns tourists on New Zealand beach

One of the deep sea's most elusive and spectacular creatures, the giant squid (Architeuthis dux), recently astonished a group of tourists after it washed up as a half-eaten corpse on a New Zealand beach. A tour guide who was leading the group at the time described the chance finding as a "once-in-a-lifetime" experience.

The colossal cephalopod, with a mantle measuring around 13 feet (4 meters) long, was discovered Sept. 9 on the beach at Farewell Spit, a nature reserve in the north of South Island. ...

It is unclear exactly how long the dead squid's entire body measured, because most of its tentacles were incomplete or buried beneath the sand.

"It looked like [the tentacles] had been chewed back by some other sea creatures, such as small sharks or fish" ...

The tour company informed New Zealand's Department of Conservation about the beached squid, and the agency will likely attempt to retrieve the remains so they can be studied, according to The New Zealand Herald. ...
FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/giant-squid-new-zealand-beach
 
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I have my doubts to but I don't know.
 
Giant Squid on Spanish beach
Is that real? That would be the biggest squid ever encountered.

No - it's faked. The squid beaching dates back to 2013, and the Photoshopped fake surfaced in early 2014. Here's the original photo of the beached squid, which was circa 30 feet long.


The crowd was taken from a different photo of people surveying a beached whale carcass. Here's a composite showing the original photos along with the mash-up.

a08e3496c89aba0c167793313433e61a--giant-squid-misleading.jpg

See (e.g.): https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/gigantic-squid/
 
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