OT: I'll never swim in Antarctic waters again...

[KevinNU7]

Call me when they find a squid qith laser blasters

[Rizon]

Why you people gotta be racist against my people.

[Bonegavel]

Squid pro quo (skwd pr kw)
-n

an equal exchange of squids

Colossal Squid pro quo (ko lass ul skwd pr kw)
-n pl Colossal Squid pro quos

an equal exchange of Colossal squids

[John Galt]

LOL.

[Surtt]

Someone has pulled the plug on

http://www.colossalsquidreport.com

Is there something we don't know about?

[WSUCougar]

"They're the broiler chickens of the sea," Dr. Landman said.

I guess you've got to be a marine biologist to understand just WTF this means.

[Calis]

Has this been mentioned? I was just looking up some info on Adult Swim and saw news of a new show in the works...

• Squidbillies: Five million years ago, the Atlantic Ocean covered North America all the way to the Ohio Valley. As the ocean receded to form our present-day geography, a family of squids was stranded in a remote setting in the North Georgia mountains. This motley melange of mischievous mollusks, influenced by the rural ways of the redneck locals, quickly “adapticise” to a world of fighting, feuding and fornicating with a Faulknerian flambé of ferocious sea creature livin’. The humor lies in the “adapticization.” A pilot for Squidbillies is currently in production; seven episodes are scheduled to air this fall.

I don't see this one lasting long, but hey..I'm all for more Squid-related programming on TV.

[JeeberD]

But are they colossal?

[corbes]

Here's your Giant Squid sighting of the day...this time from the New Yorker. Article is really, really long, so just a glimpse posted here.

THE SQUID HUNTER
by DAVID GRANN
Can Steve O’Shea capture the sea’s most elusive creature?
Issue of 2004-05-24
Posted 2004-05-17
On a moonless January night in 2003, Olivier de Kersauson, the French yachtsman, was racing across the Atlantic Ocean, trying to break the record for the fastest sailing voyage around the world, when his boat mysteriously came to a halt. There was no land for hundreds of miles, yet the mast rattled and the hull shuddered, as if the vessel had run aground. Kersauson turned the wheel one way, then the other; still, the gunwales shook inexplicably in the darkness. Kersauson ordered his crew, all of whom were now running up and down the deck, to investigate. Some of the crew took out spotlights and shone them on the water, as the massive trimaran—a three-hulled, hundred-and-ten-foot boat that was the largest racing machine of its kind, and was named Geronimo, for the Apache warrior—pitched in the waves.

Meanwhile, the first mate, Didier Ragot, descended from the deck into the cabin, opened a trapdoor in the floor, and peered through a porthole into the ocean, using a flashlight. He glimpsed something by the rudder. “It was bigger than a human leg,” Ragot recently told me. “It was a tentacle.” He looked again. “It was starting to move,” he recalled.

He beckoned Kersauson, who came down and crouched over the opening. “I think it’s some sort of animal,” Ragot said.

Kersauson took the flashlight, and inspected for himself. “I had never seen anything like it,” he told me. “There were two giant tentacles right beneath us, lashing at the rudder.”

The creature seemed to be wrapping itself around the boat, which rocked violently. The floorboards creaked, and the rudder started to bend. Then, just as the stern seemed ready to snap, everything went still. “As it unhooked itself from the boat, I could see its tentacles,” Ragot recalled. “The whole animal must have been nearly thirty feet long.”

The creature had glistening skin and long arms with suckers, which left impressions on the hull. “It was enormous,” Kersauson recalled. “I’ve been sailing for forty years and I’ve always had an answer for everything—for hurricanes and icebergs. But I didn’t have an answer for this. It was terrifying.”

What they claimed they saw—a claim that many regarded as a tall tale—was a giant squid, an animal that has long occupied a central place in sea lore; it has been said to be larger than a whale and stronger than an elephant, with a beak that can sever steel cables....

[WSUCougar]

Hey, it may be giant, it may be enormous...but it ain't colossal. Don't compromise.

[corbes]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

Hey, it may be giant, it may be enormous...but it ain't colossal. Don't compromise.

F***ing elitist.

[WSUCougar]

Thank god it wasn't colossal...

Goblin shark caught off Australia

A fisheries research team has caught a rare Goblin shark off Australia. The fish is the first one caught in over 20 years.

According to The Mercury, CSIRO shark biologist Ross Daley said that the team became very excited when they spotted the fish among a haul of deepwater blue grenadier.

"Chris said he had never seen anything like it in 20 years of fishing. He was laughing and shaking his head. We believe it to be a terribly exciting find."

"We could spend $2,000,000 trying to search the ocean for one of these and have no guarantees of finding anything."

"At this point we know very little about the species -- we are blessed with the opportunity to study it.

"Goblin sharks are bottom-dwellers, swimming hundreds of metres below the 1000m depth where fisherman fish to.

"It is not known why this one was found swimming inside that range."

The rare shark, Mitsukurina owstoni, looks like nothing else you'll have seen before in the fish world. The fish, which grows to about 3-4m, has a flappy body and a long pointed snout.

[Fritz]

you dredged the thread up for this?

[Sun Tzu]

It had to be you, wonderful you. It had to be you.

[CraigSca]

Wow, a shark with a built-in shiv coming out out of it's head. What will they think of next?

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

The fish, which grows to about 3-4m, has a flappy body and a long pointed snout.

Dola, I think I took this fish to the prom.

[WSUCougar]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

Dola, I think I took this fish to the prom.

Gold.

[-Mojo Jojo-]

Invasion of giant squid:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4193409.stm

[Swaggs]

Originally Posted by -Mojo Jojo-

Invasion of giant squid:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4193409.stm

If it ain't colossal, it ain't news.

[Desnudo]

Toothfish

[BigJohn&TheLions]

False alarm...

It was just Star Jones (easiy to see why they mistook her for a freak 400 lb female with sharp clawed tentacles...

[Fonzie]

It appears that the Colossal Squid Movement (tm) and their sympathizers have begun a PR campaign. Designed, no doubt, to familiarize us and make us comfortable with the concept of Squid Domination.



You can hedge your bets and appear to be on their side when the invasion begins by purchasing this lovely product here: hxxp://store.muledesign.com/detail/squid_m.html

[mhass]

http://community.discovery.com/eve/u.../811109993/p/1

I don't know where to start with the above message board. But the colossal squid is taking some from some colossal geeks. Here is one example:



hippobullshark
Member
Registered: 11-29-04
Posted 12-06-04 12:29 AM
Except Colossal Squid vs. Sperm Whale. I thought the Sperm Whale would win, bit I was thinking more of a rip opponent limb from limb victory.


Someone should hop in there and defend our great squid.

[CraigSca]

Oddly enough, my wife and I were talking about an animal vs. animal simulation while nodding off to sleep the other night. One of those, it sure seemed funny at the time discussions.

Anyway...she wanted to see thinks like, a poodle vs. a dolphin. That got me to thinking that you could write a program to simulate it, then create leagues, have best of three series (on land, air and water). Anyway...fortunately for all mankind we both fell asleep. I didn't realize people argue about this crap on messageboards.

[WSUCougar]

Wikipedia...C.S. has made the big time.

The Colossal Squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), sometimes called the Antarctic or Giant Cranch Squid, is believed to be the largest squid species, and the only member of the genus Mesonychoteuthis. Current estimates put its maximum size at 14 meters (46 feet), based on analysis of smaller and immature specimens, making it the largest known invertebrate.

Biology
Unlike the various giant squid species whose tentacles are equipped with suckers lined with small teeth, the tentacles of the Colossal Squid are tipped with a fierce mixture of suckers and swiveling hooks. Its body is wider and stouter, and therefore heavier, than that of the giant squid. Colossal Squids are believed to have a longer mantle than giant squids, although their tentacles are shorter.

The beak of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni is the largest known of any squid, exceeding that of Architeuthis in size and robustness. The Colossal Squid is also believed to have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom (even larger than those of giant squid).

The squid's known range extends thousands of miles northward from Antarctica to southern South America, southern South Africa, and the southern tip of New Zealand, making it primarily an inhabitant of the entire circumantarctic Southern Ocean.

While little is known about the life of this creature, it is believed to hunt prey such as chaetognatha and squid in the deep ocean using bioluminescence. Based on capture depths of a few specimens, as well as beaks found in sperm whale stomachs, the adult squid ranges at least to a depth of 2200 m, while juveniles can go as deep as 1000 m.

The squid's method of reproduction has not been observed, although some data on their reproduction can be inferred from anatomy. Since males lack an organ called a hectocotylus (a tentacle used in other cephalopods to transfer a spermatophore to the female), they probably use a penis instead, which would be used to directly implant sperm into females.

Many Sperm whales carry scars on their backs believed to be caused by the hooks of Colossal Squid. Colossal Squid are a major prey item for Antarctic sperm whales feeding in the Southern Ocean; 14% of the squid beaks found in the stomachs of these sperm whales are those of the Colossal Squid, which indicates that Colossal Squid make up 77% of the biomass consumed by these whales.[1] Many other animals also feed on this squid, including the beaked whales (such as the bottlenose whales), Pilot Whale, Southern Elephant Seal, Patagonian toothfish, Pacific sleeper shark, and albatross (e.g., the Wandering and Sooty albatrosses). However, beaks from mature adults have only been recovered from those animals large enough to take such prey (i.e., the sperm whale and Pacific sleeper shark), while the remaining predators are limited to eating juveniles or young adults.

This species was first discovered in 1925, in the form of two tentacles found in the stomach of a sperm whale. In the 1970s a Russian trawler in the Ross Sea, off the coast of Antarctica, caught a large squid with a total length of 13 feet (see image at top), which was later identified as an immature female of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. In 2003, a complete specimen was found near the surface with a total length of 6 m (20 feet) and a mantle length of 2.5 m (8 feet). On June 25, 2005, a specimen was captured at a depth of 1625 m while taking a toothfish from a longline off South Georgia Island. Although the mantle was not brought aboard, the mantle length was estimated at over 2.5 m (8 feet), and the tentacles measured 230cm. The animal is thought to have weighed between 150 and 200 kg.[2]

Notes
^ Clarke, M.R. (1980). "Cephalopoda in the diet of sperm whales of the southern hemisphere and their bearing on sperm whale biology". Discovery Reports 37: 1-324.
^ "Very Rare Giant Squid Caught Alive" South Georgia Newsletter

External links
CephBase: Colossal Squid
Giant Squid and Colossal Squid Fact Sheet from TONMO.com
Mesonychoteuthis hamiltomi at the Tree of Life web project
Colossal Squid Caught in Antarctic Waters
Super squid surfaces in Antarctic

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Squid"

[WSUCougar]

dola

I was testing my thread-moving mod powers and this seemed a likely candidate. Pardon the interruption.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

dola

I was testing my thread-moving mod powers and this seemed a likely candidate. Pardon the interruption.

f'n elitist.

[Fidatelo]

I choose this one.

[st.cronin]

Outstanding.

[korme]

lol

[korme]

In two years when this gets bumped again, no one will get Fidatelo's joke.

[TargetPractice6]

Originally Posted by Shorty3281

In two years when this gets bumped again, no one will get Fidatelo's joke.

I don't get it now.

[Fidatelo]

I can't explain it in this thread or it will invalidate Shorty's post. You'll have to P.M. someone for an explanation, or maybe start a seperate thread.

[Coffee Warlord]

Or perhaps a poll.

[st.cronin]

Wait, it was a joke? I was hoping the game had started.

[Fidatelo]

Well if it started I think I'm winning.

[WSUCougar]

Coming up on its 10-year anniversary.

[Fidatelo]

Well it wasn't 2 years, but 5 years later and even I don't get my own joke.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by WSUCougar

Years from now you'll remember what you were doing during the Colossal Squid Renaissance...

Sorry WSU, but no, I do not remember what I was doing during the Colossal Squid Renaissance.

[MIJB#19]

So much in this thread and all I can think of: Yzerman is supposed to be spelt IJzerman.

[cartman]

How Scientists Captured the First-Ever Video of a Giant Squid | Mental Floss