Humboldt squid (pics)

[skylsdale]

A bunch of these washed up around the Longbeach, WA area a little while ago, and a local guy I know just got a carcass sent to him by his brother. Anyway, knowing that I'm into this kind of thing he gave me a call and I thought I would share some pics of it. It was in GREAT condition considering it had washed up on the beach--just the eyes were missing, but the gulls get those pretty quick.

From end to tip of longest tentacles it was just under 5' long and I would guess it weighed around 30+ lbs.

 

[skylsdale]

And this is the sinister part. It's a closeup of the tentacles, and you can see that within the suction area each one has a small ring of teeth to help grapple and hold prey:

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

Those are some amazing pictures 8O I knew that they could reach that size but did not know that they had "teeth" on their suction cups! Beautiful animal, I wish I could have seen it in person Thanks for sharing

 

[wade1]

I had one bite me once when eating it in a satay dish. It wasn't amusing to find the ring of teeth in my mouth. Not terribly sharp, but not fun either.

 

[Anonymous]

I had one bite me once when eating it in a satay dish. It wasn't amusing to find the ring of teeth in my mouth. Not terribly sharp, but not fun either.

8O I would have puked right then and there!

Skylsdale, nice pics!

 

[Anonymous]

Nastay! I saw a PBS special once called Incredible Suckers--a few of these were trying to drag a full grown man down to the depths, probably to eat him. Scarier than a shark if you ask me.

 

[Unarce]

I was thinking the same thing.

Get rammed at the surface by a Great White, or pulled to the depths by the swiveling hooks of a Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni).

Hmmm.

 

[Anonymous]

I was thinking the same thing.

Get rammed at the surface by a Great White, or pulled to the depths by the swiveling hooks of a Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni).

Hmmm.

I'll pass on either, thank you verry much. Neat pictures.

 

[Anonymous]

From what I was told, there are supposedly documented reports of Architeuthis pulling people out of boats. I haven't researched them myself though...



Jim

 

[skylsdale]

There are documented reports of the Humboldts (Diodicus gigas) pulling fishermen out of smaller boats, as well. Here's some interesting reading for those of you certified divers: http://diver.net/seahunt/fend/f_scottc.htm

You couldn't pay me enough to get in the water with those beasties...

 

[Juck]

Yikes,,, anyone seen the video of that??

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

cool pictures!

 

[wade1]

Holy frijoles batman!

Those are beasts... I know how aggressive squid are, we used to capture them on lures in the pacific, but only the little ones. Tasted good, made better fish bait... but man. I can't imagine a 150lb squid slamming into you.

 

[Anonymous]

How about a 50 foot squid? 8O

 

[wade1]

How about a 50 foot squid?

That I wouldn't mind too much... since you'd be dead before you knew what was going on...

 

[Anonymous]

Whoa!

 

[tazdevil]

I thought this was sci fi. Scary!

Humboldt squid have approximately 1,200 sucker discs, each one lined with 20 to 26 needle-sharp teeth. This allows the Humboldt to attack its prey with more than 24,000 teeth at once. And nestled in its bed of eight muscular arms and two feeding tentacles is a disproportionately large, knife-edged beak similar to a parrot’s. But the Humboldt is much larger than a parrot: they have been found as large as 14 feet in length and weighing more than 700 pounds.

Ouch.

 

[narny]

Wow, would love to have seen that 7 foot squid!

 

[Tarasco]

I definitely want to know where you can find video of the research described in that link.

 

[wade1]

Sounds like they are making a documentary movie for something like Discovery channel for early next year... guess we'll have to keep our eyes out.