Calamari colossus

Giant squid are serious sea monsters. And the proof is in sperm whale poop. Until recently, that was one of the few places to find evidence of these jet-propelled cephalopods with suckers the size of saucers, sharp and pinching parrotlike beaks and tentacles armed with swiveling hooks. Simply finding these creatures alive is tricky business, but the last few years have seen some serious breakthroughs for squidophiles.

Now, let’s be clear about this: “Giant squid” is not a fanciful term to be slapped upon any large-ish inky creature. It’s an actual species – Architeuthis dux – that falls squarely in the honkin’ big category. Think aircraft fuselage. The colossal squid, an even less frequently seen relative, is bigger yet.

In 2005, Japanese researchers filmed a giant squid hunting aggressively for the first time. In dark water about a kilometer deep, cameras caught images of an 8-meter-long squid going after a lure stuffed with ground shrimp. The squid made a less than perfect getaway – it lost a tentacle – but that’s the cool part. After the tentacle was brought to the surface, it was still writhing around, suckers still sucking away.

A smaller cousin to the giant and colossal squids (Taningia danae) was recently discovered to have an eye-popping ability to generate its own light display. Its bioluminescent tentacles fire up like Christmas lights – behavior that might serve to stun prey, attract a mate or generally drop the jaws of invertebrate-loving science nerds everywhere.

Antarctic fishermen hooked a keeper this year when they hauled in their trawls and found a super-sized squid that weighed more than 450 kilograms. This latest squid, the aforementioned colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), is an impressive predator indeed and is thought to be the largest of them all. Considering all previously known M. hamiltoni specimens were found in Moby Dick’s bowel movements or stomach contents, the discovery of an intact specimen has invertebrate investigators pretty excited. 

So now we’re starting to get to know squid of the categories giant and larger. They’re big, they’re aggressive and they’re dazzling. Could there be a more amazing or surprising sea monster? Hopefully, we’ll keep unlocking their biological secrets. But it might not be so easy.

While some squid species carry their egg clusters in their arms, others deposit broods on the ocean floor. Here’s the problem: commercial deep-sea fishing can destroy squid egg sacs as they drag mile-long nets along the sea floor. And this doesn’t bode well for calamari-loving cetaceans, either. Scientists are worried that sperm whales might be starving. 

So the health and balance of the oceans is an issue. In order to save the best sea monsters ever, it seems, we’ll have to save the tank.