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Giant Squid Filmed In Natural Habitat For the First Time

First time accepted submitter Edgewood_Dirk writes that a giant squid has been filmed in its natural habitat for the first time. "Scientists and broadcasters have captured footage of an elusive giant squid, up to eight meters (26 feet) long that roams the depths of the Pacific Ocean. Japan's National Science Museum succeeded in filming the deep-sea creature in its natural habitat for the first time, working with Japanese public broadcaster NHK and the U.S. Discovery Channel. The massive invertebrate is the stuff of legend, with sightings of a huge ocean-dwelling beast reported by sailors for centuries.'" The first live footage of a giant squid was captured in 2006 by Japan's National Science Museum researcher, Tsunemi Kubodera, after it was hooked and brought to the surface.

12 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. Get A Good Look by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Before they catch it and eat it.

  2. Re:No Video at the link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    the video is more elusive than the squid

  3. With all the problems we have in the world by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone thought it was a good idea to go and mess with the children of Cthulhu?

    Yes, Cthulhu sleeps, but maybe not for long now.

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  4. Air dates (for those asking where the vid is) by Anubis+IV · · Score: 5, Informative

    It appears that we'll have to wait for the shows to air before we'll see the footage.

    January 27th on Discovery Channel for most of us.

    January 13th on NHK if you're in Japan.

    1. Re:Air dates (for those asking where the vid is) by hughJ · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It'll probably be 10 seconds of actual video which is then chopped up, played in varying arrangements and speeds, with a healthy dose of scary/ominous music, and then be inter-cut by experts that speak only in 4-5 second chunks, and then commercial breaks of 4 minutes trying to sell me a Honda. A wonderful way to spend an hour.

  5. Re:wtf? by Ol+Biscuitbarrel · · Score: 4, Funny

    So what you're saying is RELEASE THE KRAKEN VIDEO!!!!!!!!!!!! Right? Oblig filter error

  6. Re:The question that's itching to be asked.. by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Are you sure their first impulse was to EAT it? I mean...it's Japan.

  7. Re:No Video at the link by Arkham · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have it on my to-do list to record it. The live footage in full quality will air on Discovery Channel on Sun. January 27th on a show called "Monster Squid: The Giant is Real". I suspect until then it will be hard to find good quality footage.

    --
    - Vincit qui patitur.
  8. Re:The question that's itching to be asked.. by TheCarp · · Score: 4, Informative

    This question has already been answered....and the answer is...bad...

    From wiki: ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_squid )

    Giant squid and some other large squid species maintain neutral buoyancy in seawater through an ammonium chloride solution which is found throughout their bodies and is lighter than seawater. This differs from the method of flotation used by most fish, which involves a gas-filled swim bladder. The solution tastes somewhat like salmiakki[citation needed] and makes giant squid unattractive for general human consumption.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  9. Re:The question that's itching to be asked.. by the+gnat · · Score: 5, Informative

    Are you sure their first impulse was to EAT it? I mean...it's Japan.

    Japan is widely reviled for using its permitted "research whaling" activities as a cover for what essentially amounts to hunting for food. They kill whales (mostly minke, I think, which are at least fairly common) in the hundreds or thousands every year, I believe in the Antarctic, supposedly for research purposes, but since there is no prohibition on using the leftovers after the "research" is done, the meat ends up being sold in Japan. The problem is that most Japanese don't even know what whale meat tastes like, and from what I've read it's not very appealing, so it's not like there's any wide demand for the product - in fact the government has tried to promote its consumption to gain support for their policies. Obviously certain interests have great interest in the government, but it's never been clear to me whether this was a "protect our livelihoods" thing, or traditionalists and reactionaries trying to preserve a custom in the face of Western imperialism. (There's a lot of this in the US and Canada too, but it's the Indian tribes, not the central governments. Norway is one of the few other governments that pushes the practice, and you can buy whale meat there too.)

    The Japanese are also notorious for their dolphin killing - there was a documentary called The Cove from a few years ago that captured the whole mess on film.

  10. Re:The question that's itching to be asked.. by GodfatherofSoul · · Score: 4, Funny

    WHOOSH! (google "hentai" my friend)

    --
    I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
  11. Re:The decline of Discovery Channel. by Jonner · · Score: 4, Informative

    They're still government properties, their frequencies, brands, copyrights and studios belong to the taxpayers, who paid to develop all of it. They'll be on the block soon, just like many municipal water utilities and public power utilities already are. More of the neo-liberal hogwash about how private industry is always more 'efficient' somehow will be used as the justification, or maybe "deficit reduction".

    You are dead wrong. According to PBS themselves, they are not and never have been part of any government:

    PBS is a private, nonprofit corporation, founded in 1969, whose members are America’s public TV stations -- noncommercial, educational licensees that operate more than 350 PBS member stations and serve all 50 states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.

    .

    NPR is a "privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization."

    Both organizations get a significant minority of funding from the Federal government-funded Corporation For Public Broadcasting but neither NPR nor PBS is owned by the Federal government any more than the multitude of private organizations which receive some Federal funding. They probably wouldn't exist today if they hadn't been funded by the CPB and if the CPB stopped funding them altogether, they would suffer greatly. However, no part of the Federal government can sell either PBS or NPR and even if all Federal funding were cut off, they'd still have a chance of surviving on their other sources of funding.