Spotting of a rare colossal squid

News is not only slow, but what news we have is depressing.  Plus I had to sit by the pond this morning while they cleaned out the algae, which scares the ducks, making them flee and hide. And they hide so well that you can’t find them or even see them. Fortunately, after a two-hour absence, they just returned (11 a.m.) and so I’m much relieved.  This is why the presence of a mother duck is essential: the ducklings don’t know what to do. She herds them to a secluded spot and somehow makes them lie down and be quiet.

But nos let’s read about a colossal squid—a rarity just spotted, in a juvenile form, in the depths near the South Sandwich Islands. No, this is not an ancient squid “de-extincted” by Colossal Biosciences, nor is it what most of us thinks of as the “giant squid“, which is in another family. But this species is, as you’ll below, perhaps the biggest squid we know of in terms of mass. It also happens to be the heaviest invertebrate on Earth.

from Wikipedia:

The colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) is a species of very large squid belonging to the family Cranchiidae, that of the cockatoo squids or glass squids. It is sometimes called the Antarctic cranch squid or giant squid (not to be confused with the giant squid in genus Architeuthis) and is believed to be the largest squid species in terms of mass. It is the only recognized member of the genus Mesonychoteuthis.

The species is confirmed to reach a mass of at least 495 kilograms (1,091 lb), though the largest specimens—known only from beaks found in sperm whale stomachs—may perhaps weigh as much as 600–700 kilograms (1,300–1,500 lb),making it the largest extant invertebrate.  Maximum total length is ~4.2 metres (14 ft). Larger estimates exist, however these include the feeding tentacles measured on dead specimens as in life the squid’s tentacles are hidden, only released when capturing prey. If tentacles are considered, lengths of 10 metres (33 ft) and 14 metres (46 ft) exist, but the former estimate is more likely.  The colossal squid has the largest eyes of any known creature ever to exist, with an estimated diameter of 27–30 cm (11–12 in) to 40 cm (16 in) for the largest collected specimen.

Voilà: an 82-second video.

Wikipedia gives a size comparison of an adult squid with a human:

It eats mostly fish and smaller squid, and is preyed on by sperm whales and some sharks. Here’s its beak:

And here’s a bit from a Scientific American column about the spotting in the video above:

A faintly fluttering specter, at first hardly visible among bits of marine snow falling in slow motion, emerged from the deep-sapphire void. The pilot of the underwater robot brought the creature to the center of the frame, giving scientists on a ship at the ocean’s surface a good view of the strange life-form. Its mostly transparent, speckled dome was topped with fins that busily flapped like tiny wings, and its tentacles were drawn up underneath it, toward its glowing red undercarriage.

There was little fanfare—just a few minutes of quiet, almost reverent observation. But the encounter, 100 years in the making, marked the first time a colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) had ever been caught on film in its natural habitat.

“This is one of the planet’s true giants, living in one of our most pristine marine ecosystems,” says Kat Bolstad, an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, who helped independently identify the creature from the footage. “It’s a source of fascination and wonder, and it also plays a huge role in Antarctic food webs.”

. . . . “We filmed it because it was beautiful and unusual, and then we kind of descended back all the way down to the seafloor to do the exploration that the rest of that dive was focused on,” the expedition’s chief scientist, Michelle Taylor of the University of Essex in England, said during a press conference. It wasn’t until a few days later, after the team heard from some glass squid experts, that the researchers fully realized the observation’s significance.

. . . “To get footage of a juvenile is so wonderful,” said Aaron Evans, an independent glass squid expert, at the press conference. Scientists know colossal squid are born tiny, and some adult specimens are preserved in collections, but their time between those stages isn’t well understood. “So for us to see this kind of midrange size, in between a hatchling and an adult, is really exciting because it gives us the opportunity to fill in some of those missing puzzle pieces to the life history of this very mysterious and enigmatic animal.”

h/t: Erik