First Live Giant Squid on Video!!

[FlaSoxxJim]

This is the same japanese research group that got the still images of one a couple of years ago.

 

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A Japanese research team has succeeded in filming a giant squid live -- possibly for the first time -- and says the elusive creatures may be more plentiful than previously believed, a researcher said Friday.

 

The research team, led by Tsunemi Kubodera, videotaped the giant squid at the surface as they captured it off the Ogasawara Islands south of Tokyo earlier this month. The squid, which measured about 24-feet long, died while it was being caught.

 

"We believe this is the first time anyone has successfully filmed a giant squid that was alive," said Kubodera, a researcher with Japan's National Science Museum. "Now that we know where to find them, we think we can be more successful at studying them in the future.

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/22...d.ap/index.html

 

A professional acquaintance of mine, Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian has made a career out of hunting for these guys. Almost to the point of a Captain Ahab and Moby Dick obsessiveness in some folks' opinion. Scientists have yet to observe live giant squid in their natural deep-sea habitat (@300 to 1,000 meters), and that's still Clyde's key ambition.

 

My institution's markee research vehicles are a pair of midwater research submersibles designed to explore precisely thsese depths (we leave the real deep stuff to Woods Hole/Jason). Our subs and Clyde's research goals would be a perfect match but for the fact that the search for giant squid in the deep sea is very much a needle/haystack proposition, and at an expedition cost of $30-$50K per day it's hard to fund very many days of searching. (Anybody want to sponsor an expedition??)

 

BUT, if this Japanese team can demonstrate some site fidelity on the part of the squid, maybe the haystack will get small enough that we really can tackle the search with the subs.

 

Anyway, I got really jazzed when I saw this story. Maybe I'll drop Clyde a line and tell him we have loads of subscription sub time available for 2007 (poor federal funding cycle), if he wants to give these Japanese fellers a shout.

[sox4lifeinPA]

My favorite part of the article....

 

The squid, which measured about 24-feet long, died while it was being caught.

 

 

"Scientists"

[FlaSoxxJim]

My favorite part of the article....

"Scientists"

 

there's a special level of Dante's Inferno reserved just for biologists to be eternally tortured by all the organisms they snufffed in the name of science. Most of my doctoral work involved captive predator-prey studies so my professional kill total is pretty low. But I have friends whose cumulative fish collections during their thesis years are probably in the neighborhood of several hundred K and I'm sure their afterlife will include at least a century of being captured and formalin-fixed in jars by huge monster fish.

[sox4lifeinPA]

there's a special level of Dante's Inferno reserved just for biologists to be eternally tortured by all the organisms they snufffed in the name of science. Most of my doctoral work involved captive predator-prey studies so my professional kill total is pretty low. But I have friends whose cumulative fish collections during their thesis years are probably in the neighborhood of several hundred K and I'm sure their afterlife will include at least a century of being captured and formalin-fixed in jars by huge monster fish.

 

again..."scientists"

[FlaSoxxJim]

again..."scientists"

You can't be considered an"expert" on any particuular organism until you've done in a couple thousand of them, Bro.

[mreye]

and says the elusive creatures may be more plentiful than previously believed,

 

He's only saying that so he doesn't take too much crap for killing it.

 

 

Very cool, though. I'm not much of a geek in this field, but I've read and watched enough to know that this is big.

[Balta1701]

You can't be considered an"expert" on any particuular organism until you've done in a couple thousand of them, Bro.

Happily, everything I work on has been dead for at the very least a few million years, more often a few tens to hundreds of millions of years.

 

[sox4lifeinPA]

He's only saying that so he doesn't take too much crap for killing it.

Very cool, though. I'm not much of a geek in this field, but I've read and watched enough to know that this is big.

 

That's what the guy who killed the last Dodo thought.

 

 

 

Happily, everything I work on has been dead for at the very least a few million years, more often a few tens to hundreds of millions of years.

 

 

 

but the earth is only 10,000 years old

[Balta1701]

but the earth is only 10,000 years old

Bishop Usher actually concluded that the earth is just over 6000 years old. You Heathen!

[sox4lifeinPA]

Bishop Usher actually concluded that the earth is just over 6000 years old. You Heathen!

 

I'm ok with God taking as long as he wants to make the earth. How ever we got here, I know it would have been quite a sight to see. He did a great job until we started pullin' giant squids out of the ocrean with no remorse.

[FlaSoxxJim]

I'm ok with God taking as long as he wants to make the earth.

 

So, your God is kind of a Short Bus Special Ed. God and the time to completion on a task doesn't matter. Cool. How very progressive of you.

[mr_genius]

Bishop Usher actually concluded that the earth is just over 6000 years old.

 

well thats a relief. way less confusing than what that nerd from NASA was saying.

 

The universe is ((13.7 ± 0.2) × 10 to the 9th power) years old? ok dude.

Edited December 22, 2006 by mr_genius

[sox4lifeinPA]

So, your God is kind of a Short Bus Special Ed. God and the time to completion on a task doesn't matter. Cool. How very progressive of you.

 

your face.

[DBAHO]

Wouldn't really want to be stuck down in the ocean with one of those things would you.

[sox4lifeinPA]

Wouldn't really want to be stuck down in the ocean with one of those things would you.

 

Apparently they're no match for Japanese Scientists...

[FlaSoxxJim]

Apparently they're no match for Japanese Scientists...

 

That's what they thought about Godzilla too. Wait for the sequel.

 

Wouldn't really want to be stuck down in the ocean with one of those things would you.

 

If you were down at 1,000 m and not ecnlosed within a submersible you'd have bigger problems than these guys.

 

But, yeah, they are very capable predators and they put up a good fight with the sperm whales that are munching them. For centuries whalers hauled in sperm whales with impressive suction mark scars on them inflicted by Architeuthis – as well as a belly full of beaks. If fact, some of the earlier overestimtes of the maximum size the squid attained were because extrapolating body length from the diameter of the scars on the whales didn't take into account the fact that the scars grew as the whales did.

[sox4lifeinPA]

That's what they thought about Godzilla too. Wait for the sequel.

If you were down at 1,000 m and not ecnlosed within a submersible you'd have bigger problems than these guys.

 

But, yeah, they are very capable predators and they put up a good fight with the sperm whales that are munching them. For centuries whalers hauled in sperm whales with impressive suction mark scars on them inflicted by Architeuthis – as well as a belly full of beaks. If fact, some of the earlier overestimtes of the maximum size the squid attained were because extrapolating body length from the diameter of the scars on the whales didn't take into account the fact that the scars grew as the whales did.

 

 

Jim, never stop posting. I love nerdy things like this. thanks.