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Giant Octopus
texchanchan writes "Yahoo reports that the first adult specimen, dead unfortunately, of a very large octopus species has been brought in by fishermen. '[A] very big octopus, the size of a fully mature male giant squid,' says a marine biologist. It is described as 'extremely deep... extremely large...'"
All I need to do is genetically modify it to be smarter, and then strap on a mind control device, and presto: my plan to conquer the world will be complete!
Finally the Old Ones have returned to cleanse the Earth from those pesky nests of human beings.
I was beginning to lose hope.
Where to begin?
Squid and octopi come from the same branch of the tree as oysters, snails, and chitons, meaning that they're mushy, non-segmented (think millipede or vertebrae), have a shell, and taste yummy. Of all the molluscs, squid and octopi are most closely related to each other, but there are several key differences.
In squid, the shell is reduced to a beak and a thin, flexible support called the pen. The pen lets them have that long, tubular body. Octopi have a beak, but no pen, making them pretty mushy (and able to fit through really small holes).
For the most part, squid live in the water column and hunt and octopi on the bottom and scavenge. (You could probably call picking on clams hunting, but really...). Squid are fast; octopi slow.
Here's a key difference if you want to keep one behind glass. Squid have to keep moving. Put them in a tank and they die quickly. You can keep an octopus for years, just throw it a raw crab once in a while. Because of this, we are able to find out that many octopus species are intelligent. Some squid may be just as smart (they haven't caught a live Architeuthes yet, so they're smarter than tuna!), but we have no way of knowing because we can't really do tests on them.
Both are cephlapods, meaning they have their feet on their heads. Octopi have eight arms, more or less identical. Squid have eight stubby arms and two long ones with grabby pad on the end, the tentacles. Inside, they're pretty much the same: gut, ink sac...nothing you really want to eat.
There you have it, the highlights, at least. God, I'm a nerd.
The largest octopus reported in scientific literature was 32 feet from arm tip to arm tip and weighed 300 lbs. It was an unusual looking octopus. The biggest one that I've ever seen was found in the waters around Vancouver Island, and was 22.5 ft. from arm tip to arm tip and weighed 156 lbs. (Jim Cosgrove, RBCM)
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taken from http://7thfloormedia.com/projects/safari/newslett