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    Colossal Squid off Australia
    By Danna Staaf | April 9th 2012 06:16 PM | 8 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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    About Danna

    Cephalopods have been rocking my world since I was in grade school. I pursued them through a BA in marine biology at the University of California...

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    A new instance of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltonii, more commonly known as the colossal squid:
    A HUGE squid weighing 120 kilograms found off Portland [Australia, not Oregon] last week is believed to be a rare species to south-west waters.
    Local fisherman and boat operator Bob McPherson said his investigations pointed to the orange-coloured squid being a colossal type, slightly smaller than a giant squid caught off New Zealand last year.
    “It’s a pretty rare species for these waters,” he told The Standard.
    “I’ve never seen one as big as this. Its body was about two metres long, one metre wide and weighed 120kg. The unusual thing about it was yellow hooks in its suckers."
    Very big squid in the Southern Ocean, hooks in the suckers--I'll back up Bob, that sure sounds like a colossal squid to me. But the thing is, it's actually not that rare. Human sightings of colossal squid may be colossally infrequent, but sperm whales are chowing down on these things.

    Colossal squid live throughout the Southern Ocean, so Australia is actually one of the very few places you might expect to see them. It just means this rather arbitrary blue wave needs to be moved north a bit:


    Comments

    Do the tentacle hooks show up in the whale tummies?

    Sweetwater Tom (not verified) | 04/09/12 | 18:40 PM
    Danna Staaf
    You know . . . that's a really good question! We always hear about the beaks, but I'm sure the hooks persist for a while, too. I would guess the reason they're not talked about as much is that they're not as useful for identifying squid to species--there are actually a number of different squid species with hooks, and their shapes probably aren't species-specific.
    Danna Staaf | 04/09/12 | 20:12 PM
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat

    Danna, the article you linked to said about the colossal squid :-

    “It was dead, floating in the water when we found it off Portland while fishing for tuna in 700-metre-deep water. The tentacles are shorter than those on a giant squid.” Meanwhile, an international joint-venture marine research team is doing sonar tests along the Portland coast counting whales.

    How bizarre that they should be doing sonar tests to count whales when we are constantly reading that sonar tests damage whales. This rather paranoid looking article says that sonar tests are damaging whales and dolphins and causing them to beach themselves and Wiki also says that :-

    Active sonar, the transmission equipment used on some ships to assist with navigation, has been suggested to be detrimental to the health and livelihood of some marine animals, although the precise mechanisms for this are not well understood. Some marine animals, such as whales and dolphins, use echolocation or "biosonar" systems to locate predatorsand prey. It is conjectured that active sonar transmitters could confuse these animals and interfere with basic biological functions such as feeding and mating. A recent study has shown that whales experience decompression sickness, a disease that forces nitrogen into gas bubbles in the tissues and is caused by rapid and prolonged surfacing. Although whales were originally thought to be immune to this disease, sonar has been implicated in causing behavioral changes that can lead to decompression sickness. 
    Is it possible that sonar tests could also be damaging to Colossal squid as well as the whales and dolphins? Also here is the picture of the dead Colossal squid being pulled out of the water and I wondered if you, as a marine squid expert, could explain what all that white stuff pouring out of the pipe is likely to be?
    —
    Make love not war
    Helen Barratt | 04/10/12 | 03:16 AM
    Danna Staaf
    Great questions, Helen! I know there are a lot of different kinds of sonar, and I'm no expert. My guess would be that the sonar being used to count the whales might be quite different from the kinds that are known to damage whales. The connection between sonar and squid is even more mysterious than between sonar and whales, as I've written about here. Basically, it is possible that sonar can damage squid, but it is also possible that is has no effect. We just don't know.
    My interpretation of that picture is a rather damaged squid specimen. The skin of the squid is red-pink, and the white areas at the top (under the person's finger) and at the bottom are squid flesh that is no longer covered by skin. The bottom area (I'm guessing) could be the arm crown, with most of the arms torn off. I don't see a pipe--I think the manmade object to the left of the picture is just a tool that was being used to pull the squid toward the camera. Guesswork, though!

    Danna Staaf | 04/10/12 | 18:31 PM
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    I know there are a lot of different kinds of sonar, and I'm no expert. My guess would be that the sonar being used to count the whales might be quite different from the kinds that are known to damage whales. 
    Well I'm afraid that I don't share your optimism Danna. On this wantoknowinfo website about dolphin and whale media articles there are numerous media articles reporting the potentially fatal and also very negative effects of sonar testing upon whales and dolphins, which all repeatedly keep saying that this area is not yet fully understood just as you keep saying this. 

    So any Australian and International scientists who are still  going out and using sonar to count whales sound like mad, inconsiderate, other agenda scientists to me! I wouldn't be at all surprised if they are also responsible for this Colossal Squid's death because as you pointed out in your other article called 'Can loud Noises Really Kill Squid?' it does look as though squid are adversely affected by sonar tests, so this is just one more tiny bit of evidence to possibly support this theory. Very sad in my opinion that we have so little understanding about these amazing creatures and have only ever discovered a couple of dozen ever and now we could be killing them without even knowing for sure that we are.

    American Navy soldiers, or should I call them them sailors, started arriving here at their new US Military base in Darwin, Australia recently. Several of the articles on the site I linked to above clearly say that the only way that the US Navy can monitor other navies' submarines, is by using sonar tests that are known to damage and possibly kill whales and dolphins. Not good news for the prolific Australian cetaceans and possibly even the squid in our coastal waters!
    —
    Make love not war
    Helen Barratt | 04/11/12 | 03:13 AM
    rholley
    On telly about an hour ago, the Hairy Bikers were trying to make these.  This involves wrapping together, in the correct order, “arms” of dough.



    One of them remarked “It’s like getting a squid to do a Morris dance!”
    —
    Robert H. Olley Quondam Physics Department University of Reading England
    Robert H Olley | 04/10/12 | 16:12 PM
    Danna Staaf
    Perhaps they should make a squid-to-croissant video in this vein:
    Danna Staaf | 04/10/12 | 18:32 PM
    Bonny Bonobo alias Brat
    Robert, its good to see that the hairy bikers in England are busy making croissants, I wish I could say the same about the hairy and/or the bald, big scary, often tattooed and leather backed 'bikies' in Australia, who are much too busy running our huge, illegal drug syndicates, and lately vociferously marching alongside politicians demonstrating against the relaxing of the drug laws in Australia!

    Its a bit like the police in Australia are also very different to English bobbies. When I first arrived in Australia I got a bit lost in Sydney, so I walked into a police station and asked the policemen there for directions. They said 'we're not bloody English bobbies lady' but still gave me the street directions reluctantly, needless to say, I haven't been back. They are however very helpful when I need their help tracing and rescuing people who are in the process of committing suicide or getting cows off the road before they kill someone, which happens a lot around here.
    —
    Make love not war
    Helen Barratt | 04/11/12 | 03:14 AM