More info about Colossal Squid!!!

[cartman]

I thought some here might find this stuff interesting!

hxxp://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725103.600

Gruesome habits of the giant squid

ENSHRINED in myth as ferocious beasts that upturned boats to munch on sailors, giant squid could have a diet that is even less palatable in reality: Architeuthis dux may indulge in cannibalism.

Identifying the prey of A. dux has not been easy because the squid finely macerate their food, the digestive systems of most specimens studied have been empty, and none has ever been examined alive.

Now Bruce Deagle of the University of Tasmania, Australia, and his team have analysed the gut contents of a male giant squid caught by fishermen off the west coast of Tasmania in 1999. Among the slurry of macerated prey, they found three tentacle fragments and 12 squid beaks. The beaks could not be unequivocally identified, but all of the squid DNA in the slurry, and the tentacle fragments, was found to be that of A. dux (Journal of Heredity, vol 96, p 417). "This strongly suggests cannibalism," says team member Simon Jarman of the Australian Antarctic Division in Kingston, Tasmania. The only other prey species identified was a fish, the blue grenadier.

Steve O'Shea and Kat Bolstad at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand were the first to find evidence of cannibalism in A. dux, in a female caught in New Zealand waters. They published their findings in the New Zealand Journal of Zoology last year. But O'Shea suspected the cannibalism was accidental.

"The male giant squid has to use a puny 15-gram brain to coordinate 150 kilograms of weight, 10 metres of length and a 1.5-metre-long penis," he says. "He physically plunges this penis into the female's arms, which are rather unfortunately right next to her beak. Because he is coordinating so much with so little, I think occasionally bits get chewed off when they inadvertently get too close to the beak."

However, the Tasmanian specimen is male. And other large squid, such as the jumbo squid, Moroteuthis ingens, are known to eat members of their own species, Jarman points out. The team therefore thinks the cannibalism is likely to be intentional. "It is interesting that cannibalism has been documented a second time in A. dux," says O'Shea.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by cartman

I thought some here might find this stuff interesting!

hxxp://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725103.600

Gruesome habits of the giant squid

ENSHRINED in myth as ferocious beasts that upturned boats to munch on sailors, giant squid could have a diet that is even less palatable in reality: Architeuthis dux may indulge in cannibalism.

Identifying the prey of A. dux has not been easy because the squid finely macerate their food, the digestive systems of most specimens studied have been empty, and none has ever been examined alive.

Now Bruce Deagle of the University of Tasmania, Australia, and his team have analysed the gut contents of a male giant squid caught by fishermen off the west coast of Tasmania in 1999. Among the slurry of macerated prey, they found three tentacle fragments and 12 squid beaks. The beaks could not be unequivocally identified, but all of the squid DNA in the slurry, and the tentacle fragments, was found to be that of A. dux (Journal of Heredity, vol 96, p 417). "This strongly suggests cannibalism," says team member Simon Jarman of the Australian Antarctic Division in Kingston, Tasmania. The only other prey species identified was a fish, the blue grenadier.

Steve O'Shea and Kat Bolstad at the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand were the first to find evidence of cannibalism in A. dux, in a female caught in New Zealand waters. They published their findings in the New Zealand Journal of Zoology last year. But O'Shea suspected the cannibalism was accidental.

"The male giant squid has to use a puny 15-gram brain to coordinate 150 kilograms of weight, 10 metres of length and a 1.5-metre-long penis," he says. "He physically plunges this penis into the female's arms, which are rather unfortunately right next to her beak. Because he is coordinating so much with so little, I think occasionally bits get chewed off when they inadvertently get too close to the beak."

However, the Tasmanian specimen is male. And other large squid, such as the jumbo squid, Moroteuthis ingens, are known to eat members of their own species, Jarman points out. The team therefore thinks the cannibalism is likely to be intentional. "It is interesting that cannibalism has been documented a second time in A. dux," says O'Shea.

The part I bolded, in conjunction with the part you bolded, implies another explanation entirely!

[Surtt]

awww....

It's only a giant squid.