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Giant squid captured!
mongabay.com
December 22, 2006
Japanese researchers captured a small female giant squid near the Ogasawara islands, 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo. The squid, which measured 3.5 meters (11 ft 6 in) long and weighed 50 kg (110 lb), was hooked at a depth of 650 meters (2,150 ft). The capture comes a year after researchers produced the first photographs and video of living squid.
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Tsunemi Kubodera, chief of Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Science Museum of Japan, with the captured Giant Squid on a boat off Ogasawara Islands, Japan, on December 4, 2006. Image courtesy of the National Science Museum of Japan.
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The researchers found the squid by tracking sperm whales -- the chief known predator of the squid -- to their feeding grounds.
Giant squid are marine mollusks related to cuttlefish and the octopus. They are deep-ocean dwellers that can grow to at least 10 m (33 ft) for males and 13 m (43 ft) for females, although there are undocumented reports of specimens of up to 20 m (66 ft).
The giant squid is believed to be the second largest squid after the Colossal Squid [2007 update: Colossal Squid found alive!], which lives in the Southern Ocean. No one has ever seen a live colossal squid, which is the world's largest invertebrate.
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mongabay.com (December 22, 2006). Giant squid captured!. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1222-squid.html
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