Easy Mac
08-12-2004, 10:09 PM
These are some really fucked up, horny creatures.
USNEWS.COM
Special Report
Big old Squiggly things
Is the giant squid the swinger of the deep seas? Although scientists know less about these fabled creatures than they do about dinosaurs, they have new clues to at least one intriguing aspect of squid life. Squid love, it turns out, starts with a 5-foot-long penis and may include homosexuality, cannibalism, even group sex. Ahem.
Man has long been taken with Architeuthis dux, an invertebrate as long as a city bus. Legend has it that squids can capsize tall ships. But reality may be frightening enough: The male squid's penis is tipped with a cartilage-like plug it uses to cut the female's arms and deposit packets of sperm. In the confusion of mating, experts believe, the female may bite off some of the male's other appendages.
Trauma. Interestingly, sperm has been found all over the bodies of both male and female squid. "Homosexuality in squid happens all the time," says Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University of Technology. But Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History disagrees, saying that males caught in nets may simply ejaculate in response to the trauma.
Of course, no one knows for sure because it is widely believed that a mature Architeuthis has never been seen alive. Not that scientists haven't tried. Failed schemes to photograph squid include attaching cameras to whales, who eat them, and dispatching submersibles to look for the beasts.
For a while, O'Shea caught baby Architeuthis and tried to raise them in captivity. They all died. So now he's branching out. "In the freezer, we have 40 to 50 kilograms of squid gonad," he says. "We're going to squirt out a soup of male and female gonads, and hopefully one will be attracted . . . and come up to the camera." The squid could attempt to mate with the camera, he says. Or, one hopes, with another squid. -Caroline Hsu
USNEWS.COM
Special Report
Big old Squiggly things
Is the giant squid the swinger of the deep seas? Although scientists know less about these fabled creatures than they do about dinosaurs, they have new clues to at least one intriguing aspect of squid life. Squid love, it turns out, starts with a 5-foot-long penis and may include homosexuality, cannibalism, even group sex. Ahem.
Man has long been taken with Architeuthis dux, an invertebrate as long as a city bus. Legend has it that squids can capsize tall ships. But reality may be frightening enough: The male squid's penis is tipped with a cartilage-like plug it uses to cut the female's arms and deposit packets of sperm. In the confusion of mating, experts believe, the female may bite off some of the male's other appendages.
Trauma. Interestingly, sperm has been found all over the bodies of both male and female squid. "Homosexuality in squid happens all the time," says Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University of Technology. But Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History disagrees, saying that males caught in nets may simply ejaculate in response to the trauma.
Of course, no one knows for sure because it is widely believed that a mature Architeuthis has never been seen alive. Not that scientists haven't tried. Failed schemes to photograph squid include attaching cameras to whales, who eat them, and dispatching submersibles to look for the beasts.
For a while, O'Shea caught baby Architeuthis and tried to raise them in captivity. They all died. So now he's branching out. "In the freezer, we have 40 to 50 kilograms of squid gonad," he says. "We're going to squirt out a soup of male and female gonads, and hopefully one will be attracted . . . and come up to the camera." The squid could attempt to mate with the camera, he says. Or, one hopes, with another squid. -Caroline Hsu