Ha! ...I was scuba diving off Baja in Mexico, and it is imperative to get out of the water if you see a humbolt (sp) squid.
A 1m-2m squid can drag a scubadiver down to his/her death and will eat you buy pulling plugs of your flesh out an acorn-sized piece at a time....and they get into a feeding frenzy just like sharks, but worse.
If A. Dux is encountered over 3-5m long, it could probably instantly kill you. They are extremely fast, violent, and powerful. They would only take out chunks about the size of a grapfruit.
There is a National Geographic show on that shows another, larger species of humbolt squids in the Phillipines which are even more aggressive and dangerous....great show if you can catch it. A husband an wife team go down and are almost immediately attacked and harrassed by the squids. ....they were scientist and had a few divers in the water constantly fending off attacks. I think one shot shows the guy getting dragged down about 50 feet in about 1/2 second.....scares the bejeebers outta you.
Chilling. I suppose if the ocean is warmer, Humbolt and Dux will be coming to a beach near you.
And those thick tentacles are pure muscle.
Although read this:
How big can a squid get? Estimates based on peices of carcasses found in the belly's of sperm whales range up to one hundred feet. One unconfirmed story, though, suggests they might get even larger. One night during World War II a British Admiralty trawler was lying off the Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean. One of the crew, A. G. Starkey, was up on deck, alone, fishing, when he saw something in the water:
"As I gazed, fascinated, a circle of green light glowed in my area of illumination. This green unwinking orb I suddenly realized was an eye. The surface of the water undulated with some strange disturbance. Gradually I realized that I was gazing at almost point-black range at a huge squid."
Starkey walked the length the of the ship finding the tail at one end and the tentacles at the other. The ship was over one hundred and seventy five feet long.
A 1m-2m squid can drag a scubadiver down to his/her death and will eat you buy pulling plugs of your flesh out an acorn-sized piece at a time....and they get into a feeding frenzy just like sharks, but worse.
This inspired me to look up some info on Humboldt Squids- you're right about getting out of the water right away. These things are a lot worse than sharks.
Sharks might mistake you for a sea lion or something. Humboldts don't care what you are or aren't- and if they can't get anything else, they'll sometimes eat each other.
What's next- a living Megalodon?