September 23, 2009

Gulf of Mexico Gives Up Giant Squid

American scientists in the Gulf of Mexico unexpectedly netted a 19.5-foot (5.9-meter) giant squid off the coast of Louisiana, demonstrating how little is known about life in the deep waters of the Gulf.

Not since 1954, when an Architeuthis was found floating dead off the Mississippi Delta, has the rare species been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico.

The squid, weighing 103 pounds (46.7 kg), was caught July 30 (but was only announced this week). It was recovered in a trawl net more than 1,500 feet underwater, being pulled by a research vessel.

The specimen was sent to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History for further study, now one of only five from the USA in the collection.

“As the trawl net rose out of the water, I could see that we had something big in there … really big,” Anthony Martinez, a marine mammal scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the chief scientist on the sperm whale research cruise, observed.

This find illustrates how little we know about what is swimming around in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. This is the first time one has actually been captured during scientific research in the Gulf of Mexico.

Michael Vecchione, director of
NOAA’s Fisheries Service’s National
Systematics Laboratory

London’s Telegraph (22 Sept 2009) had one of the more bizarre comparative remarks about the find: “The squid was more than two feet longer than the 2010 Ford Crown Victoria taxi edition.”

For more background on giant squids in general, see here.

No life-size models of Architeuthis in the collection (yet), but you’ll be able to see full-size replicas of a coelacanth, an immature Cadborosaurus, a Sasquatch, a FeeJee mermaid, and some forthcoming surprises! Join hundreds of other members of the cryptozoology community in supporting the International Cryptozoology Museum as it opens in downtown Portland, Maine.

Please click on the button below (not the one up top) to take you to PayPal to send in your museum donation.

If you wish to send in your donation via the mails, by way of an international money order or, for the USA, via a check (made out to “International Cryptozoology Museum”) or money order, please use this snail mail address:

Loren Coleman, Director
International Cryptozoology Museum
PO Box 360
Portland, ME 04112

Thank you, and come visit the museum at 661 Congress Street, Portland, Maine 04101, beginning November 1, 2009!! This educational/scientific/natural history museum is not a 501(c)3.

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Classic Animals of Discovery, CryptoZoo News, Megafauna, Museums