IT IS a real life Kraken, and a scientific treasure. This huge female squid was dragged from the Ross Sea off Antarctica by the crew of a fishing boat after it attacked their catch of Patagonian toothfish.
With a body, or mantle, 2.5 metres long, it is the largest squid yet recorded – and it is still a juvenile. It is also the first giant squid found near the surface.
“This is a very impressive beast,” says Mark Norman, an expert on giant squid at the Melbourne Museum. “Very, very little is known about this species, and if this is a juvenile, it gives us a sense that we’re dealing with much bigger monsters out there than previously suspected.”
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Most giant squid so far landed are of the species Architeuthis dux. Claims that this species reaches a length of 18 metres are thought to be exaggerated, based on stretched tentacles recovered in the 19th century. A. dux is not reliably known to develop a mantle longer than 2.25 metres, nor a total body length of more than 13 metres. Its two main feeding arms account for most of its length.
In contrast, the so-called “colossal” squid shown above is Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. The species was first identified from two arms found in the stomach of a sperm whale in 1925 and very few individuals have been caught since. The only other specimen to have been caught live, in 1985, was another juvenile with a mantle 1.05 metres long. That was trawled at a depth of 2000 to 2200 metres. “Everybody believed it was an abyssal animal,” says Steve O’Shea at the Auckland University of Technology, who has studied the new squid. “Now we know this animal occurs right up from 2200 metres to the surface – that’s a phenomenal depth range.”
M. hamiltoni is far more massive than its rivals. Though it measures only 6 metres, including tentacles, its body is proportionately much bigger than A. dux’s. The jaw of the lower beak measures 37 millimetres, nearly twice the size of the jaw of a mature A. dux, O’Shea says.
O’Shea’s examination of the squid’s ovaries revealed only a few tiny eggs, indicating that it had not reached adulthood. Had it been an adult, its mantle would have been at least 4 metres long – about one-third of its total length, says O’Shea. “This would have been an enormously bulky animal.”
The squid, caught several weeks ago, died of injuries inflicted while it was hauled aboard the fishing vessel. It is now being held, preserved in ice, at Te Papa, the national museum of New Zealand.
Analysis of the animals’ cartilaginous ear bones might reveal important clues to its age, says Norman. But hopes that its stomach contents could reveal its feeding habits have been dashed. “The stomach was badly damaged during its capture, and actually fell out when we were transporting it,” says O’Shea. “Inside, we found only a big hook – nothing else.”