I'm gonna git you, sucker!
You all have probably heard the news by now since the story was released last week, but just thought I'd mention it again here: the Giant Squid (Architeuthis) has been photographed, alive, in its natural habitat. Parts of Giant Squid have washed up on beaches and dead ones have been caught in fishing nets, but never has a healthy, live specimen been caught on film. Apparently, a team of Japanese scientists, led by Tsunemi Kubodera, accomplished this feat by pretty conventional means: they tied some bait to a rope that had a camera attached to it. I watched a television special a few years ago, about a team trying to photograph these beasts by fastening cameras to wild sperm whales (natural predators of the Giant Squid) in the hopes that they would capture them feeding on the squid. I seem to remember the cameras getting bumped off or popping off at a certain depth before the whales caught anything, although seeing the whales diving down, ready for the hunt was exciting in itself.Wow. This picture is so freaky to me - according to the AP story, the squid pictured is 26 feet long and was at a depth of around 3000 feet when photographed. Imagine that coming at you out of the murk. Click on the pic for a bigger view.
1 Comments:
Wow, I'm so glad you gave me the scientific name for it. "Giant Squid" wasn't really clear to me. hehe. Actually, I did catch a lot of that news footage as well. It is pretty freaky!
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