Giant Colossal Squid Thawed
Posted by: Loren Coleman on May 1st, 2008
Scientists stand in a thawing bath as they inspect the eye of the colossal squid at Te Papa Museum in Wellington on April 30, 2008. The 26 feet (8 meters) long colossal squid weighs 1,089 pounds (about 495 kg) and is the largest and best preserved adult colossal squid to be caught. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
This same colossal squid was previously discussed at Cryptomundo, here and here.
It was taken in February 2007. It was originally thought to measure 39 feet long but estimated to weigh only 990 pounds.
Fishermen on the vessel San Aspiring, owned by the Sanford seafood company, caught the animal in the cold Antarctic waters of the Ross Sea.
Photos: NZ Ministry of Fisheries / AAP
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.
Calimari? anyone?
Rap
So.
I know it’s not a mature one…but how far along is this one in the premature stage of life? I doubt it’s still a toddler.
Well G., apparenly this specimen is a young male, so scientis think females grow to be much, much larger.
I would really like to know what range of light that eye can register at the depths this leviathan lives.
The article I read said that they compared the beak on this one to beaks found in the stomachs of sperm whales and this particular squid’s beak was not as big as some of the others found…so they are guestimating that they can get a whole lot bigger…:)
And while I am at it, while it offers no real proof, the fact that a 26 foot squid is present and that they can grow much larger, leads to the basic cryptozoological claim…
if something that big is alive and afoot in the world’s oceans, then it is very possible that there are other big critters out there as yet undiscovered…and sea serpents head my list!
GOOD, GOOD point there, SPRINGHEELEDJACK.
I WILL say, it may not be as BIG as was thought, but still…
YIKES!!!