# Giant Squid Found Alive



## RAXL (Jul 9, 2004)

Some scientists in Japan have photographed the elusive Gaint Squid alive, in the ocean, for the first time ever.


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## SuFiKitten77 (Jul 19, 2005)

You always find the coolest things


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## RAXL (Jul 9, 2004)

Thanks.  
I try. 
By the way, this thing is suppossed to be about 26 feet, I believe.


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## ScareFX (Aug 18, 2004)

That pic was from like 3000 feet down wasn't it?


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## Sinister (Apr 18, 2004)

I saw this yesterday on Yahoo. Cool, indeed.


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## RAXL (Jul 9, 2004)

Here's some of the article, from CBS. Pretty wild stuff.


When a nearly 20-foot long tentacle was hauled aboard his research ship, Tsunemi Kubodera knew he had something big. Then it began sucking on his hands. But what came next excited him most — hundreds of vivid photos of a rare giant squid in its natural habitat deep undersea. 

Observing a giant squid in the wild for the first time, Kubodera's team took photos of a 26-foot-long, purplish-red sea monster attacking its bait nearly 3,000 feet undersea, then struggling for more than four hours to get free. The squid pulled so hard on the line that held the shrimp bait that it severed one of its own tentacles. 

"It was quite an experience to feel the still-functioning tentacle on my hand," Kubodera, a researcher with Japan's National Science Museum, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "But the photos were even better." 

The mysterious giant squids, formally called Architeuthis, have for centuries been the stuff of legend, appearing in the myths of ancient Greece or attacking a submarine in Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." But they had previously been seen only when they were caught in fishing nets or washed ashore dead or dying — never alive in their natural habitat. 

But the Japanese team, capping a three-year effort, filmed the creature in September of last year, finding what one researcher called "the holy grail" of deep sea animals. 

The results were not announced until this week, when they were published in Wednesday's issue of the British journal, the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Kyoichi Mori, of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association, co-authored the study. 

Largely because of the sheer difficulty of finding the deep-sea dwelling giant, the team's photos were cheered by researchers around the world. 

"That's getting footage of a real sea monster," said Randy Kochevar, a deep sea biologist with the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. "Nobody has been able to observe a large giant squid where it lives. There are people who said it would never be done. It's really an incredible accomplishment." 

The photos — taken with strobe lights at 30 second intervals — also shed some new light on the mysterious squid's behavior. 

"We think it is a much more active predator than was previously thought," Kubodera said Wednesday. "It had previously been seen as more lethargic, and not as strong."


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## Sinister (Apr 18, 2004)

Now all they need to find is an honest-to-god sea serpent and a Megalodon and we'll be set.


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## RAXL (Jul 9, 2004)

Holy christ. 
People thought JAWS kept them out of the water. Can you imagine what would happen if a MEGALODON turned up alive? :xbones: :xbones:


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## claymud (Aug 21, 2005)

As it has been pointed out... the ocean is a large and vast place, where as the surface. The Sea on the other hand keeps her secrets guarded. I guess a sea serpent or Megalodon (Had to look that 1 up) runnin around out there is probable. Notice how people thought that there were species of fish that were extencet... until they were later caught, so why couldn't these guys be running around.


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## HibLaGrande (Sep 25, 2005)

yeah I seen that yesterday! I was going to mention it but had less important things to share.


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## SuFiKitten77 (Jul 19, 2005)

I think it would be cool to find a Megladon, and like it's been said, could be with how enormus the ocean is


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## dougspaulding (May 22, 2004)

I saw that movie - it was pretty bad, but the Megalodon was cool.

Fishy fishy in the brook, Daddy catch him on a hook
Mama fry him in a pan, Johnny eat him like a man!


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## claymud (Aug 21, 2005)

I think their gonna need a bigger boat...


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## SuFiKitten77 (Jul 19, 2005)

The Titanic sounds about right


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