First images of a living giant squid

[drdiver1952]

Peer review? They still do that? What happened to the good old days of making a 'discovery,' then releasing the news before verification (cold fusion, anybody?)

LMAO Good one! Whatever happened to those guys?

 

[Vie]

makes you wonder what that dark critter is that you can't quite make out at 40' in 30' of vis.

Wouldn’t want to run into one of these...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2910849.stm

http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Mesonychoteuthis&contgroup=Cranchiidae

 

[miskatonic]

Don't know exactly where to put this but here it goes:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9503272

 

[SueMermaid]

Finally. After all that searching, someone finally spots one. This is a good day.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Too COOOL!!!!!

 

[RIOceanographer]

If anyone is interested in the original scientific journal article where the scientists published their findings it is freely available online:

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/proc_bio_content/pdf/RSPB20053158.pdf

 

[HowardE]

Cool MSN video...

I also think it's good that people are learning about the "Truth about sea-monsters" from days of old.

Remember - Herman Melville - called "the white whale" and all whales - FISH. How much we have learned in 100 years about the oceans, and how much more do we still have to learn.

 

[archman]

If anyone is interested in the original scientific journal article where the scientists published their findings it is freely available online:

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/proc_bio_content/pdf/RSPB20053158.pdf

Thanks for the link, I've already printed out a copy and made copies of them for my professors. I am quite pleased that there are both photos AND fresh live material. I love how simple and inexpensive their photographic setup was. Our lab is also dumbed down equipment-wise, and we get great data too.

Field research in this area just got booted up a few notches. It will be interesting to see how many turf wars develop between squid researchers and wildlife photographers.

I do not understand this "zipper-style" tentacle arrangement. I need a diagram!

 

[drbill]

My son just forwarded a link on this for me to check out. I hope I don't run into one of them in our dive park (yes, I know... it's too shallow).

 

[Charlie99]

I do not understand this "zipper-style" tentacle arrangement. I need a diagram!

Giant squids are unique among cephalopods as they can hold the long tentacle shafts together with
a series of small suckers and corresponding lugs along
their length that enable the shafts to be ‘zipped’ together.
This results in a single shaft bearing a pair of tentacle clubs
in claw-like arrangement at the tip.

Sounds like small suckers on one tentacle match up with the lugs on the other, and vice versa, generating the squid equivalent of opposing thumbs.