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60' Squid Washes up on Tasmanian Beach
Astrobirdr writes "CNN has a
story about a giant squid that recently washed up on a Tasmanian beach. Some think it might be a
new species." 60 feet long is enough for a lot of calimari.
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From the Article, emphasis mine:
"It's definitely of the giant squid group, which is exciting enough," the museum's senior curator of Zoology, David Pemberton said in the ABC report.
Editors Note: David Pemberton is an associate professor at the Royal Academy of Really Obvious Facts. His new book Kitty Cats Go Meow is due out in the fall.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
After a series of underwater-nuclear tests, a 60's style Japanese man in a giant lizard costume invaded Japan killing hundreds of small model people and toppling many a cardboard buildings.
...And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me." - Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)
A pack of 200 squid is slightly unbelievable.
But extremely fucking cool.
I cracked up when I got to the sentence: "The giant squid is believed to feed on, among other things, the world's biggest animals with several eyewitness stories from fisherman who have seen the squid in fierce battles with whales." Usual high standards of CNN science journalism. *sigh*
s/squid/slashdotter/
Actually, they are being fed those giant brained mice that we also get to read about from a link on slashdot.
"People will then realize that anxiety and distress in life will lead to the lasting comfort in death."-Confucius
Observations of squid 10 times bigger have been cited:
Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs [1/8 of a mile!] in length and breadth, lay floating on the water. Innumerable long arms radiated from its centre, curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas [strangling snakes], as if blindly to catch any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; but it undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.
"With a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again. Starbuck with a wild voice exclaimed, 'Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!'
"'What was it, Sir?' said Flask.
"'The great live squid, which -- they say -- few whaleships ever beheld and returned to their ports to tell of it.'"
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.
Australia telecommunications giant Telstra would have us believe that giant squids regularly chomp on their underwater cables. Seems to be the explanation for 90% of the inexplicable downtime local consumers suffer. :P Guess the squids are iron deficient.
All I ask is a warm bed, a kind word, and UNLIMITED POWER