Posted on 02/22/2007 12:51:48 AM PST by Stoat
New Zealand fishermen in the Ross Sea have caught what's thought to be the largest squid ever found.
Its estimated weight is about 450 kilograms.
The species is known as the colossal squid, shorter but much heavier than the better known giant squid.
It was hauled to the surface while munching on one of its favourite foods, a Patagonian toothfish which the fishermen had hooked on a longline.
Dr Steve O'Shea, from the Auckland University of Technology, says the previous largest find weighed 300 kilograms.
He says if calamari were made from the squid the rings would be the size of tractor tyres.
The squid was caught three weeks ago, but the find was only announced today.
Geoff Dolan, an observer with New Zealand's Ministry of Fisheries, was aboard the vessel San Aspiring, owned by the Sanford seafood company, when the squid was hauled aboard.
"There was quite a lot of excitement onboard ... the decision was taken that the chances of survival were not good, and in the interests of science it should be taken on board," Dolan said.
Sanford's deepwater division manager Greg Johansson said the squid was barely alive when it was pulled aboard.
"It was deemed that is was more valuable to science," Johansson said.
The squid was taken below deck and stored in a 1200 litre capacity bin, before it was frozen.
It has since been transferred to one of the company's coolrooms in Timaru, on New Zealand's South Island.
It will ultimately end up at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, where it will be preserved for scientific study.
Colossal squid were first described in 1925 after two tentacles were found in the stomach of a sperm whale.
The creatures live in an area from Antarctica to the southern extremities of South America, South Africa and New Zealand, a statement from the New Zealand government said.
It said few colossal squid have been sighted, with one was caught in the net of a Russian trawler in the Ross Sea in 1981, another found near the surface in 2003, and another near South Georgia Island in the Southern Atlantic ocean on a toothfish longline last year.
I'm curious, why is a wheel weight in picture #4?
Oh, maybe it came from the tractor tire?
Odd.
I think it there to reference the size of the sucker and hooks.
Such horrific imagery! Far worse than any demon of the deep! Surely a creation of Satan himself!
See what you've done? Now I need to cleanse my neural pathways of this toxic beastliness with angelic visions of normalcy, sanity and coherence
There! That's much better!
"snicker"
I'll just wait a little while until the sun is below the yardarm....
Well, it's common squid trick when they're caught... they pretend to look unedible... lol..
LOL... that's scary. Let's do the same too... they might have thought humans have the best meat. It's payback time.
Yummy... And the wine, exactly the right one for it.
,,, post #45 - you're right!
,,, yep, as you would a kingfish.
,,, permission to come aboard granted.
Could it be near death because it had the bends?
I am thinking because it was hooked on a line,then maybe it had ascended too quickly and couldn't decompress.
Oh, dang, that Hello Kitty / Cthulu one is funny!
My understanding that it's common for creatures from the very deepest regions of the oceans to die when they are brought to or near to the surface. Their entire physiology is based upon living under literally tons of pressure that is the norm at such great depths, and so when that pressure is eliminated their bodies and body systems are unprepared for the radical change. Although I'm no marine biologist and can't cite the specific physiological functions that are affected, I think that these creatures experience just as much of a deadly change as a human or surface-dwelling animal would experience if subjected to the pressures of such depths.
Another example of a very specific physiological design can be seen in the giraffe, whose heart and circulatory system is designed to function only with the animal upright and with the long neck providing a vertical gravity load for the heart and associated organs. When the animal cannot stand up, the gravity load is eliminated and the animal dies.
I'm delighted that you enjoyed it :-)
I must confess that I didn't make it myself but shamelessly stole it from the internet.
The rapist can't run for V.P.
I've never eaten kingfish.
,,, it's common in sushi bars here.
~~~ I've never been in a sushi bar.
I think I may have eaten some raw fish at an authentic Hawaiian luau, the dish was Lomi - Lomi Salmon and the Salmon was raw. It had lotsa other stuff mixed with it and I had consumed lotsa booze, so I don't remember if I liked it or not. >:-}
That was in 1959.
,,, the only thing that stops me from eating sushi every day is the cost.
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