The Giant, Prehistoric Squid That Ate Common Sense

We have a serious problem with science journalism. A big one, in fact, and today that problem takes the form of a giant, prehistoric squid with tentacles so formidable that it has sucked the brains right out of staff writers’ heads.

While making the rounds among a few California museums late last month, I kept hearing rumors of a bombastic, super-hyped presentation due to be presented at this year’s Geological Society of America meeting in Minneapolis. The scuttlebutt was that someone was going to give a talk about a super-intelligent, predatory squid which fed on huge ichthyosaurs during the Triassic. Fascinating, if true, but the reason that all the paleontologists I met were chuckling was because there was not a shred of actual evidence to back up the claims. Apparently, whoever was set to give the talk had apparently stayed up late watching It Came From Beneath the Sea too many times.

Now the talk has officially been given and the scant details of the proposition have been oozed out into the newswires by way of a press release. Let me be clear — there is no paper yet or anything specific for those not in attendance at GSA to look at. This fact will be key to the media nonsense which has been swirling around the web today.

You can find the skinny through ScienceDaily and the official GSA abstract, but the basic story is as follows. In central Nevada — among the roughly 215 million-year-old, Late Triassic rocks of what has come to be known as Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park — paleontologists have previously found the remains of numerous marine reptiles called Shonisaurus popularis. These were some of the largest ichthyosaurs to have ever swum the ancient seas, and this particular site has been of interest to paleontologists because multiple individuals have been found together at some localities. Why these individuals were found together in a mass death assemblage is unknown — explanations have ranged from stranding to poisoning by a prehistoric red tide — but now Mark McMenamin and wife Dianna Schulte-McMenamin of Mount Holyoke College have suggested that the graveyard is actually a cache of bones collected and arranged by a squid the likes of which has never been seen.

There is no direct evidence for the existence of the animal the McMenamins call “the kraken.” No exceptionally preserved body, no fossilized tentacle hooks, no beak — nothing. The McMenamins’ entire case is based on peculiar inferences about the site. It is a case of reading the scattered bones as if they were tea leaves able to tell someone’s fortune. Rather than being distributed through the bonebed by natural processes related to decay and preservation, the McMenamins argue that the Shonisaurus bones were intentionally arrayed in a “midden” by a huge cephalopod nearly 100 feet long. (How the length of the imaginary animal was estimated is anyone’s guess.) But that’s not all — the McMenamins speculate that his “kraken” played with its food:

The proposed Triassic kraken, which could have been the most intelligent invertebrate ever, arranged the vertebral discs in biserial patterns, with individual pieces nesting in a fitted fashion as if they were part of a puzzle. The arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle, with each amphicoelous vertebra strongly resembling a coleoid sucker. Thus the tessellated vertebral disc pavement may represent the earliest known self‑portrait.

I guess a giant, ichthyosaur-eating “kraken” wasn’t enough. A squid with a stroke of artistic genius was clearly the simplest explanation for the formation of the bonebeds. *facepalm*

Of course, the McMenamins were not the first people to ponder how the ichthyosaurs came to rest at the site. Paleontologist David Bottjer wrote a summary of the bonebed — largely based on the work of colleague Jennifer Hogler – for the book Exceptional Fossil Preservation. As a whole, the fossil deposits indicate that different Shonisaurus specimens died and became preserved in different ways. Some skeletons were scattered by currents and scavengers, and other, more-complete individuals — such as those at the Fossil House Quarry — were well preserved and found in multi-individual groups. In this latter case, a lack of encrusting invertebrates would seem to indicate that the skeletons came to be preserved in deep water environments with low levels of dissolved oxygen. The initial cause of death for the marine reptiles is unknown, but there is no good evidence that the exceptional sites were, to borrow from Ringo Starr, giant killer octopus gardens.

Read on...

Sneaky Squid: Why Small Males Have Big Sperm

ScienceDaily (Aug. 10, 2011) — Male squid (Loligo bleekeri) employ different reproductive strategies depending on their body size. Research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that the divergent mating behavior of male squid has resulted in the evolution of different sperm sizes.


Large male squid compete for females by courting them with flashy skin color-change displays. Once a female has chosen her partner they mate in an above and below position so that the male can place his sperm inside the female's oviduct. He remains with the female until she spawns, ensuring that his sperm fertilize her eggs and that no other males have a chance to mate with her. At the moment a female lays her eggs, small 'sneaker' males rush in and mate with her, head to head. These small males place packages of sperm by the female's mouth in the hope that their sperm have a chance of fertilizing the eggs as they leave the female's body.


When researchers from London and Japan looked at the sperm produced by small sneaker males and large consort males they discovered that the sperm produced by the sneaker males was larger than that of the consorts. Dr Yoko Iwata from University of Tokyo said, "Sperm size is likely to be an adaptation to fertilization environment, either inside the female or externally, rather than competition between sperm, because the fertility and motility of sneaker and consort sperm were the same."

Overall, the larger males' strategy resulted in higher paternity rates -- but for smaller males, who cannot win a female by fair means, being sneaky gives them a chance of passing on their genes.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110809212436.htm

Giant Squid Killed by Sound?

"We now have proof" sonar blasts can harm squid, expert says.

Ker Than
for National Geographic News
Published May 3, 2011

When giant squid were found dead off Spain about a decade ago, scientists suspected that powerful sound pulses from ships had harmed the animals. Now the evidence may be in.

A new study says low-frequency sounds from human activities can affect squid and other cephalopods, not just whales and other marine mammals, which have long been thought to be vulnerable to such pulses. (See "U.S. Navy Sonar May Harm Killer Whales, Expert Says.")

The finding suggests noise pollution in the ocean is having a much broader effect on marine life than previously thought, said study leader Michel André, a marine bioacoustician at Barcelona's Technical University of Catalonia.

"We know that noise pollution in the oceans has a significant impact on dolphins and whales [which use natural sonar to navigate and hunt]. ... but this is the first study indicating a severe impact on invertebrates, an extended group of marine species that are not known to rely on sound for living," André said in a statement.

(Related: "Colossal Squid Has Glowing 'Cloaking Device,' Huge Eyes.")

Giant Squid Mystery Solved?

In the early 2000s the remains of giant squid were found off Spain's Asturias province (map). In each case, the creatures' bodies appeared soon after ships had used air guns to conduct low-frequency sound-pulse exercises in the region, in some cases for oil-and-gas prospecting efforts.

Scientists investigating the giant squid remains at the time found evidence of extensive bodily damage, including mantles reduced to pulp, bruised muscles, and lesions in statocysts. These fluid-filled organs rest behind the creatures' eyes and help giant squid maintain balance and position. (See pictures of a colossal squid dissection.)

At the time, marine biologist Angel Guerra speculated—but was unable to prove—that noise from prospecting ships was harming cephalopods and other marine life.

"With this study, we now have proof" that low-frequency sounds can harm cephalopods, said Guerra, a marine biologist at Spain's Marine Research Institute who was not involved in the current study, which will appear in a future issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.

(See rare pictures of sperm whales eatiing a giant squid.)

Damage Worsened With Time

During the study, the research team examined the effects of low-frequency sound exposure in 87 individual cephalopods belonging to four species: two species of squid, one species of octopus, and one species of cuttlefish. (See "Cuttlefish Change Color, Shape-Shift to Elude Predators.")

For two hours the animals were exposed to sound with intensities of between 157 and 175 decibels and frequency ranges of 50 to 400 Hertz.

These frequencies and intensities "are commonly found in the noise produced by many activities at sea," such as military sonar tests or efforts to detect oil and natural gas by gauging the nature of material beneath the seabed, the Technical University of Catalonia's André told National Geographic News.

After the sound exposure, the scientists killed the animals, either immediately or up to 96 hours afterward.

The animals that were killed immediately after exposure showed signs of damage to their statocyst tissue. Specifically, tiny hairlike structures in statocyst cells—which bend as the cephalopods move through water and help the animals balance—were lost, essentially crippling the creatures.

The animals allowed to live longer showed further damage, including large, visible holes in the statocyst tissue.

"This is a typical process found in land mammals and birds after acute noise exposure: a massive acoustic trauma followed by peripheral damage, making the lesions worse over time," André said.

In their final seconds or hours, the test cephalopods "moved a little bit, but they were not swimming, eating, or mating," André said.

A separate group of about a hundred cephalopods was not exposed to the pulses. They remained healthy and behaved normally.

Both groups had been kept in the same aquariums before being separated, and all the animals had behaved normally before the tests—ruling out the possibility that the damage observed in the test group was due to captivity or human handling, he said.

(Pictures: "Giant Squid Get Extreme Plastic Surgery.")

"Raise the Alarm" for Giant Squid?

Though the cephalopods in the experiments were much smaller than giant squid, the experiments represent "the same phenomena as with the giant squid," the Marine Research Institute's Guerra said.

The test animals are appropriate stand-ins for their giant squid cousins, according to Guerra, who said he sees no reason why the findings wouldn't apply to giant squid.

There are some differences in the damage, though.

The injuries to the giant squid found last decade, he noted, were much more pronounced than in the experimental animals. Guerra attributes this to the higher acoustic intensities and multiple sound sources giant squid are exposed to in the real world.

And of course, the giant squid were found not just injured but dead, unlike the test animals. But scientists say the case of the giant squid off Spain suggests death is one possible outcome of exposure to low-frequency blasts.

At the time of the giant squid deaths, "we hypothesized that the giant squid died in one of two ways: either by direct impact from the sound waves or by having their statocysts practically destroyed and [the squid] becoming disoriented," Guerra explained.

"The disoriented animals might wander up from the depths to the surface, where the temperature difference kills them."

Marine zoologist Michael Vecchione, of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), isn't yet sure.

Though the new research presents enough evidence to "raise the alarm," more studies are necessary before a solid case can be made that human-caused noise pollution is causing pervasive damage to marine life, said Vecchione, who also did not participate in the study.

But, he added, "the evidence is accumulating that what [Guerra] first proposed based on the giant squid might actually be correct."

More: Alien-like Squid With 'Elbows' Filmed at Drilling Site >>

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/05/110503-giant-squid-octopus-sonar-acoustic-tests-science-whales-sound/

New species of large squid found

Has light-producing organs to lure prey

November 2010: A new species of squid has been discovered in the southern Indian ocean.

The new species, 70cm long, is a large member of the chiroteuthid family - squids from this group are long and slender with light-producing organs, which act as lures to attract prey. So far, more than 70 species of squid have been identified from the IUCN-led Seamounts cruise, representing more than 20 per cent of the global squid biodiversity.

‘For ten days now 21 scientists armed with microscopes have been working through intimidating rows of jars containing fishes, squids, zooplankton and other interesting creatures,' says Alex Rogers, Principal Scientist and Marine Biologist at the Zoological Society of London. ‘Many specimens look similar to each other and we have to use elaborate morphological features such as muscle orientation and gut length to differentiate between them.'

The recent discoveries are part of an IUCN-led Seamounts Project, which started a year ago when a team of the world's leading marine experts ventured into a six-week research expedition above seamounts in the high seas of the Indian Ocean. The aim of the cruise was to unveil the mysteries of seamounts in the southern Indian Ocean and to help improve conservation and management of marine resources in the area.

‘The new discoveries will not only satiate the appetite of scientists working in the field, but will help improve conservation and management of Indian Ocean resources and future management of deep-sea ecosystems in the high seas globally,' says Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/new-species-squid.html

New species of large squid found

Has light-producing organs to lure prey

November 2010: A new species of squid has been discovered in the southern Indian ocean.

The new species, 70cm long, is a large member of the chiroteuthid family - squids from this group are long and slender with light-producing organs, which act as lures to attract prey. So far, more than 70 species of squid have been identified from the IUCN-led Seamounts cruise, representing more than 20 per cent of the global squid biodiversity.

‘For ten days now 21 scientists armed with microscopes have been working through intimidating rows of jars containing fishes, squids, zooplankton and other interesting creatures,' says Alex Rogers, Principal Scientist and Marine Biologist at the Zoological Society of London. ‘Many specimens look similar to each other and we have to use elaborate morphological features such as muscle orientation and gut length to differentiate between them.'

The recent discoveries are part of an IUCN-led Seamounts Project, which started a year ago when a team of the world's leading marine experts ventured into a six-week research expedition above seamounts in the high seas of the Indian Ocean. The aim of the cruise was to unveil the mysteries of seamounts in the southern Indian Ocean and to help improve conservation and management of marine resources in the area.

‘The new discoveries will not only satiate the appetite of scientists working in the field, but will help improve conservation and management of Indian Ocean resources and future management of deep-sea ecosystems in the high seas globally,' says Carl Gustaf Lundin, head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/new-species-squid.html

Squid gets Canada Post's stamp of approval (Via Chad Arment)

July 9, 2010
CBC News

A famous Newfoundland sea monster will soon occupy a space normally reserved for Canada's Queen. Glover's Harbour's giant roadside squid statue has been chosen to appear on a new Canadian stamp. People living in the community on Newfoundland's northeast coast can hardly believe it. "For a little town of Glover's Harbour to be picked? Shocking," said resident Cathy Haggett.

Haggett's sister, Melinda Marsh, was equally surprised. "It was like, huh? We were picked to be on the stamp?" said Marsh. Both women are members of the committee that had the squid statue built in 2001. The 16.8-metre piece is based on a massive squid that washed up on the shore near Glover's Harbour in 1878. It put the tiny town in the Guinness World Records book.

Next summer, a stamp baring its image will be licked and slapped on envelopes that could end up in any corner of the globe. Haggett believes it will be a big draw for the area. "I think it will bring a lot of money towards here, not only Glover's Harbour, but surrounding areas like Point Leamington and Leading Tickles," she said. About 2,000 people now visit the concrete monster annually. Marsh is convinced many more will come next summer.

"We're hoping to get stamp collectors from many different places in the world, that will come out and see this monster," she said. Haggett joked Canada Post might want to hire more staff in Glover's Harbour, because when the stamp comes out, residents plan to start mailing letters to everyone they know … and even some they don't.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/newfoundland-labrador/story/2010/07/09/nl-squid-stamp-709.html

Super squid sex organ discovered

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8792000/8792008.stm


Page last updated at 08:02 GMT, Wednesday, 7 July 2010 09:02 UK
Super squid sex organ discovered
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

The mating habits of deep-sea squid have been revealed for the first time, after the discovery of a male squid with a huge elongated and erect penis.

The male squid's sexual organ is almost as long as its whole body, including the squid's mantle, head and arms.

That shows how male deep-sea squid inseminate females; they use their huge penis to shoot out packages of sperm, injecting them into the female's body.

The discovery may also help explain how giant squid mate in the ocean depths.

Deep-water fisheries expert Dr Alexander Arkhipkin of the Falkland Islands Government Fisheries Department, based in Stanley, explains how he and his colleagues made the discovery, details of which are published in the Journal of Molluscan Studies.

"The mature male squid was caught during a deep-water research cruise on the Patagonian slope. We took the animal from the catch, and it was moribund with arms and tentacles still moving, and chromatophores on the skin contracting and expanding," he told the BBC.

"When the mantle of the squid was opened for maturity assessment, we witnessed an unusual event.

"The penis of the squid, which had extended only slightly over the mantle margin, suddenly started to erect, and elongated quickly to 67cm total length, almost the same length as the whole animal."

The squid's sexual agitation caught the researchers by surprise.

However, its occurrence has helped solve a mystery of how deep-sea squid mate.

Biologists know much more about the mating habits of shallow water cephalopods, the group containing octopus, squid and cuttlefish.

All cephalopods are hindered by their body shape, which comprises a closed hood-type structure called a mantle, which forms most of what appear to be a cephalopod's body and head.

The animals use this mantle to move via jet propulsion, they must ventilate it to breathe, and they must also hide their excretory and sexual organs within its structure.

That poses a challenge to male cephalopods: how do they get their sperm past this mantle, and how does the sperm stay there when water is being forcibly passed through the mantle cavity so females can move and breathe?

Shallow water cephalopods have evolved a special arm to do the job.

They have short penises which produce packets of sperm, called spermatophores, then one of their eight limbs is modified to transfer this sperm to special receptacles on the female.

These receptacles are located either on their skin, or internally.

Deep-water male squid are known to use a more primitive method, which involves somehow injecting their sperm into the female's body.

However, it remained a mystery as to how they did it, as they lack a modified arm.

"In deep-water squid we could only guess how this happens," says Dr Arkhipkin.

But the catching of the male deep-sea squid, of the species Onykia ingens, has revealed the answer.

"Obviously a strongly elongated penis is the solution," says Dr Arkhipkin.

The squid uses its lengthy organ to reach into the body of the female, and it then injects the sperm directly to prevent it being washed away.

How the sperm injected into a female's body then reaches her reproductive organs remains a mystery.

It may circulate in the cephalopod's blood, just as it does in the bodies of gastropods, which are snail-like molluscs that are distantly related to cephalopods, which are also molluscs.

But it does suggest that one more outlandish theory about how giant squid reproduce may now be ruled out.

So few giant squid (Architeuthis dux), or its even larger relative the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), have been sighted or brought ashore that scientists have had to speculate about their mating habits.

Dead specimens have been found, but that made it impossible to see that they too likely have extremely long penises, which are tucked under their mantle, before being extended to reach the female, says Dr Arkhipkin.

"So some authors even hypothesised that the giant squid 'shoot' their spermatophores hydraulically from distance to the females," he says.

"Obviously our findings show that the reproductive habits of giant squid may be bizarre, but not to that extent."

Last month, the same researchers revealed research showing the discovery that some deep-sea fish and squid species have mysteriously migrated across the world, from the north Pacific Ocean to the southwest Atlantic.

__._,_.___

Mystery B.C. fossil is early squid-family ancestor (from Chad Arment)

Margaret Munro, Canwest News Service
May 26, 2010

A "treasure chest" of fossils on a windswept B.C. mountaintop is back in the headlines, thanks to an intriguing little creature that zipped around the ancient seas using jet propulsion.

The carnivore — fossilized in the Burgess Shale half a billion years ago and now identified by a Toronto team — is one of the oldest and most primitive relatives of modern squids, octopuses and cuttlefish.

The discovery has propelled the ancient creature, named Nectocaris pteryx, onto the pages of the Thursday's edition of the British journal Nature, where it is pictured alongside NASA's space shuttle that's taken jet propulsion to much greater heights.

Evolution has just begun to play with that concept when Nectocaris pteryx prowled the oceans 500 million years ago. It later was perfected in squids, cuttlefish and octopuses — which are unique among animals in the way they can shoot through water using "built-in hydro jets that can even send them squirting through the air like little rockets on a tail of water," the journal says.

The journal says the creature had a nozzle-like funnel on its snout that was able to "swivel like a pivoted cannon," and expel water in any direction.

"It's was a very clever way to get around," says paleontologist Jean-Bernard Caron, of the Royal Ontario Museum, noting that the fossilized animal has long been a mystery.

The first specimen was picked up decades ago in the famed fossil beds of the Burgess Shale, now a world heritage site atop a mountain in Yoho National Park, along the B.C.-Alberta border.

The specimen was hauled back to Toronto, but no one was quite sure where the creature fit on the evolutionary tree because of the fossil's squashed appearance and "ambiguous" characteristics.

It could have been a relative of anything from a lobster to a fish, says Caron.
Caron suggested University of Toronto PhD student Martin Smith take another look at both the original fossil and 91 other specimens that have been collected on the mountaintop in the last three decades.

"It turned out to be more interesting that I thought initially," says Caron, noting that the discovery has pushed back the origin of jet-propelling animals, known as cephalopods, by at least 30 million years.

What has emerged is a clear — and rather cute — picture of Nectocaris pteryx, which measured up to five centimetres long in the fossils.

The kite-shaped little predator had eyes perched on stalks — "It could probably see in all directions," says Caron — and two long, grasping tentacles, which were likely used to catch and consume prey. It swam with large lateral fins and "probably used its nozzle-like funnel to accelerate by jet propulsion," the journal reports.

It also had gills that the scientists say appear in some fossils to be choked with mud, suggesting that the animals were killed in an underwater mudflow, says Caron.

The Burgess Shale, discovered a century ago, is a paleontologist's dream — a "treasure chest," as Stephan Bengston, of the Swedish Museum of Natural History, writes in Nature.

Field crews — who continue to explore the area for new fossils and fossil beds — have uncovered tens of thousands of ancient organisms belonging to about 200 species in the Burgess Shale, from a time when the first complex animals on Earth emerged about half a billion years ago.

The planet has been reshaped considerably since then, with the fossils and remains of ancient tropical seas getting pushed by geological forces on to mountaintops in the Canadian Rockies.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Mystery+fossil+early+squid+family+ancestor/3074055/story.html

Monster colossal squid is slow not fearsome predator

Friday, 7 May 2010 12:48 UK

By Jody Bourton
Earth News reporter

The world's largest invertebrate is not a fast and voracious predator as previously thought, say scientists.

The colossal squid, a creature once linked to maritime myth and feared as a sea monster, is really a slow drifting animal that ambushes unwitting prey.

That conclusion was reached by studying the physiology and feeding habits of other deep sea species and scaling up to the colossal squid's huge size.

Rarely seen, the elusive ocean giant is thought to reach up to 15m long.

Researchers reveal their findings in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.

The colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is thought to roam in the deep waters of the Southern Ocean.

Rarely seen alive or dead, little is known about its way of life.

Estimates vary, but it is thought to measure 15m in length with a large dome-shaped mantle.

It also has long tentacles and arms containing swivelling hooks used to grapple and maul prey.

A recent specimen studied had eyes approximately 27cm (11in) across, believed to be the largest animal eye yet discovered.

The 'kraken'

Its large size and predatory nature fuelled the ancient myth of the underwater "kraken" seamonster and modern speculation that the colossal squid must be aggressive and fast, attributes that allow it to prey on fish and even give sperm whales a hard time.

Yet as the creature is seldom encountered let alone studied, there are no direct measurements of the colossal squid's behaviour.

So instead, the team used a set of routine metabolic rates for other deep-sea squid species and extrapolated the data to match the colossal squid's size.

They also factored into their calculations the cold temperature of the Southern Ocean the squid inhabits.

"The understanding of the mode of life of the colossal squid is a significant event in the ongoing investigation of enigmatic large animals of the ocean," says Dr Rui Rosa from the University of Lisbon in Portugal, who undertook the study with Dr Brad Seibel from the University of Rhode Island, Kingston, US.

"In this paper we present the first estimates of the metabolic and energetic demands of this cold-water deep-sea giant."

The researchers calculations reveal the colossal squid survives on only a small amount of prey.

"Our findings demonstrate that the colossal squid has a daily energy consumption 300-fold to 600-fold lower than those of other similar-sized top predators of the Southern Ocean, such as baleen and toothed whales," says Dr Rosa.

Recent studies have previously identified chemical variants known as isotopes in colossal squid specimens which have revealed large fish, notably Antarctic toothfish as its main prey.

This study reveals a single 5kg Antarctic toothfish would provide enough nourishment for a 500kg colossal squid to survive for 200 days.

It is thought the cold temperature in which the squid lives affects its metabolic rate.

That reduces the amount of prey it must take in relative to animals such as whales that live higher in the water and generate their own body heat.

Different animal

The result is the colossal squid is not the creature once thought.

"The colossal squid is not a voracious predator capable of high-speed predator-prey interactions," says Dr Rosa.

"It is rather, an ambush or sit-and-float predator that uses the hooks on its arms and tentacles to ensnare prey that unwittingly approach."

The team also suggest that the colossal squid's huge eyes do not help it hunt, but instead help it detect and avoid predators of its own in the deep dark waters where it lives.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8664000/8664542.stm

Scientist aims to break squid record

Squid expert Dr Steve O'Shea.

Photo / Mark Mitchell

Thursday Feb 4, 2010

An Auckland scientist is attempting to break his own world record for rearing deep sea squid in captivity.

The project is a warm-up for Dr Steve O'Shea from AUT University, whose main goal is to one day raise a giant squid in atank.

The marine biologist, who is known for his squid research, smashed a 13-day record in 2000 when he was able to keep a squid from 300m below sea level alive for 150 days in captivity.

Dr O'Shea is using broad squid, Sepioteuthis australis, as guinea pigs for his latest project. He has raised the squid before, in 2005, for up to 180 days until they reached their natural cycle.

"The broad squid is very difficult to rear in captivity due to its 3mm size on hatching and the complex changes in diet over the first 60 days of life, but it brings me one step closer to the end game - growing giant squid," Dr O'Shea said.

"I've been told in the past that what I'm trying to do is basically impossible, and I'm told that I'm just going to spend an eternity in trying to prove them wrong.

"We are proving that the impossible is possible."

Sea squid are voracious hunters, eating prey one to one and a half times their size. In its short life, a squid eats 10 different prey types and eats only live food for the first 120 days of its life.

"There are 86 species of squid in New Zealand waters and almost nothing is known about their life history, longevity or biology," Dr O'Shea said.

"We would as scientists learn a phenomenal amount about these animals by being able to observe them in captivity."

He said he hoped to one day bring the creatures to an aquarium, where people could admire them up close.

"You would get to watch it first hand and watch the biology of this animal. You would have perfect water clarity. It's just a huge difference watching television and experiencing it yourself. That's what I'm trying to do."

He collected squid egg masses from seaweed in the Hauraki Gulf and is keeping them in a tank at AUT's Earth and Oceanic Sciences Research Institute.

He plans to capture more squid this weekend.

Squid enthusiasts around the world can catch the progress online via a squidcam - a movable webcam operating around the clock - on the AUT website.

Dr O'Shea said the site would appeal to budding scientists and squid specialists, citing earlier success with the 2005 squidcam that attracted 4000 visits in the first month.

A Canadian documentary team has tracked progress to date and this world-record-breaking attempt will appear in a documentary series this year.

- NZPA

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10623963

Catch of the day: Giant squid

Click to enlarge

Metro Herald Ireland, 03 February 2010, p10.

Big catch, rare find - Scientists net giant squid in Gulf of Mexico

By ERIC BERGER
Sept. 21, 2009

Scientists weren't sure what they would find when plumbing the Gulf of Mexico's depths for the prey of sperm whales, but they got more than they bargained for when they netted a 20-foot giant squid.

“This was beyond everyone's expectations,” said Deborah Epperson, a U.S. Minerals Management Service biologist leading the study.

Just once before, in 1954, has a giant squid been found in the Gulf of Mexico. That animal's remains were floating at the surface near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Scientists know the creatures live in the Gulf because they have found remnants in the stomachs of sperm whales.

The find came on July 30 during one of the first cruises of a two-year, $550,000 project by Minerals Management Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to characterize the nature and diversity of what sperm whales eat in the Gulf.

The project is part of the government's effort to better understand an endangered sperm whale population living in an area that is highly industrialized with oil and gas exploration and production activities.

Found off Louisiana
Sperm whales are the giant squid's only known predator.

The 103-pound specimen was found after scientists trawled at 1,500 feet and then pulled their net to the surface off Louisiana.

“As the trawl net rose out of the water, I could see that we had something big in there — really big,” said Anthony Martinez, a marine mammal scientist for NOAA, according to an agency news release. “We knew there was a remote possibility of encountering a giant squid on this cruise, but it was not something we were realistically expecting.”

The squid, like other deep water catches, was dead when brought to the surface because the animals can't survive the rapid changes in water depth as they are hauled in. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History are studying the specimen further to determine its exact species.

The squid, like other deep water catches, was dead when brought to the surface because the animals can't survive the rapid changes in water depth as they are hauled in. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History are studying the specimen further to determine its exact species.

Giant squid can grow up to 40 feet in length, and because scientists know so little about them, they're not sure if the Gulf specimen is a full-grown adult, Epperson said.

The large, rarely seen animals live around the globe, found typically near continental slopes where the continental shelf meets deep water. Scientists believe they live there because canyons cut into the slope offer easy access to fish and smaller squid.

The recent find has heightened expectations for the second, more thorough phase of the two-year cruising program that begins in January and will run through March, Epperson said

“This really heightens the fact of how little we know about what's in the Gulf of Mexico, and the diversity in the deep water,” she said. “We just can't be sure of what we will find.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6629267.html

Big catch, rare find - Scientists net giant squid in Gulf of Mexico

By ERIC BERGER
Sept. 21, 2009

Scientists weren't sure what they would find when plumbing the Gulf of Mexico's depths for the prey of sperm whales, but they got more than they bargained for when they netted a 20-foot giant squid.

“This was beyond everyone's expectations,” said Deborah Epperson, a U.S. Minerals Management Service biologist leading the study.

Just once before, in 1954, has a giant squid been found in the Gulf of Mexico. That animal's remains were floating at the surface near the mouth of the Mississippi River.

Scientists know the creatures live in the Gulf because they have found remnants in the stomachs of sperm whales.

The find came on July 30 during one of the first cruises of a two-year, $550,000 project by Minerals Management Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to characterize the nature and diversity of what sperm whales eat in the Gulf.

The project is part of the government's effort to better understand an endangered sperm whale population living in an area that is highly industrialized with oil and gas exploration and production activities.

Found off Louisiana
Sperm whales are the giant squid's only known predator.

The 103-pound specimen was found after scientists trawled at 1,500 feet and then pulled their net to the surface off Louisiana.

“As the trawl net rose out of the water, I could see that we had something big in there — really big,” said Anthony Martinez, a marine mammal scientist for NOAA, according to an agency news release. “We knew there was a remote possibility of encountering a giant squid on this cruise, but it was not something we were realistically expecting.”

The squid, like other deep water catches, was dead when brought to the surface because the animals can't survive the rapid changes in water depth as they are hauled in. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History are studying the specimen further to determine its exact species.

The squid, like other deep water catches, was dead when brought to the surface because the animals can't survive the rapid changes in water depth as they are hauled in. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History are studying the specimen further to determine its exact species.

Giant squid can grow up to 40 feet in length, and because scientists know so little about them, they're not sure if the Gulf specimen is a full-grown adult, Epperson said.

The large, rarely seen animals live around the globe, found typically near continental slopes where the continental shelf meets deep water. Scientists believe they live there because canyons cut into the slope offer easy access to fish and smaller squid.

The recent find has heightened expectations for the second, more thorough phase of the two-year cruising program that begins in January and will run through March, Epperson said

“This really heightens the fact of how little we know about what's in the Gulf of Mexico, and the diversity in the deep water,” she said. “We just can't be sure of what we will find.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hotstories/6629267.html

The cephalopods can hear you

09:18 GMT, Monday, 15 June 2009 10:18 UK
Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News

Octopus and squid can hear.

The discovery resolves a century-long debate over whether cephalopods, the group of sea creatures that includes octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses, can hear sounds underwater.

Compared to fish, octopus and squid do not appear to hear particularly well.

But the fact they can hear raises the possibility that these intelligent animals may use sound to catch prey, communicate with one another or listen out for predators.

The question of whether cephalopods can perceive sound has been controversial since the early 20th Century. Some experiments suggested that blind octopus seemed able to locate the sounds produced by boats or by tapping on the outside of a tank.

But most cephalopods lack a gas-filled chamber, such as the swim bladders that fish can use to hear. That suggested they could not detect the pressure wave component of sound.

However, sensory physiologist Hong Young Yan of the Taiwan National Academy of Science in Taipei, Taiwan suspected that octopus and squid might use another organ called the statocyst to register sound.

The statocyst is a sac-like structure containing a mineralised mass and sensitive hairs.

Fish also use it to detect sounds, and in previous research, Yan showed that prawns can use their statocysts to hear. "So we extended our work from prawns to cephalopods," says Yan.

Yan's team tested the auditory capabilities of two species, the Common octopus Octopus vulgaris and the squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana, often called the Bigfin reef squid.

They discovered that the octopus can hear sounds between 400Hz and 1000Hz. The squid can hear an wider range of sound from 400Hz to 1500Hz, they report in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A.

"That indicates that squid have a better hearing capability than the octopus," says Yan. "Interestingly though, both species hear best at a frequency of 600Hz."

Yan's team had to overcome particular technical challenges to investigate the cephalopods' hearing ability. The usual way to prove that an organism can hear is to measure how its nervous system electrically responds to sound. But that can involve directly attaching electrodes to exposed nerves, an invasive procedure that could harm delicate cephalopods.

So Yan invented a non-invasive method, which involves placing electrodes on an animal's body to measure the electrical activity in its brain. In this way, he could measure within just a couple of hours whether the brain of an octopus or squid responds to sound.

Avoiding being eaten

The discovery could open up a new understanding of cephalopod behaviour.

"The key question which I would like to investigate is what kind of sounds are they listening to?" says Yan. "Perhaps they listen to sound to evade predators and can eavesdrop to sounds made by their prey. Or, perhaps they even could make sounds to communicate among themselves."

For example, because octopus or squid do not possess gas-filled chambers within their bodies, they cannot amplify sounds, limiting their hearing ability. But they can hear as well as invertebrates such as prawns, although less well than many species of fish and the toothed whales which often eat them.

"Squid are heavily preyed upon by toothed whales including dolphins. So perhaps their hearing would aid them to avoid the pinging sounds made by dolphins," says Yan.

He says the different abilities of the octopus and squid also reflect the environment they live in.

The common octopus dwells on the seabed, which is covered by large rocks, boulders, coral reef and other features. In water, sounds above 1000Hz have a wavelength less than 1.5m. Such sound waves cannot in turn pass objects greater than 1.5m in size, and they get deflected, which could explain why the octopus doesn't need to hear them.

Squid live in the open water where there are fewer obstacles, and therefore sounds pass uninterrupted over a greater frequency range.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8095000/8095977.stm