Giant Squid footage on History Channel [Archive]

gonetobaja

Nov 9th, 2007, 02:25pm

do you know the technical specifications of the "squidcam," like field of view, focal length, etc? Is it autofocus or fixed focus? What sort of light source does it have?

I dont know the specs on the squidcam. I have seen footage from it though. There is a LED light display around the entire front of the lens so it gives off a good amount of light. It is an auto focus camera and I have seen it take good footage of subjects up to 30 ft away underwater (depending on vis).

From what I understand they are going to have a "specialist" determine the possible size.

Like I said before, all I can tell ya is that its BIG.

I hope everyone understands that the people that got the footage, the divers under the water, are not responsible for the way that the show is cut or presented. They are just responsible for getting the footage. I imagine that there will be some discussion after the show is aired as to what we actualy filmed(its a squid for sure, just what kind I dont know.)

I cant wait to see it.

Danno

Nov 9th, 2007, 07:31pm

I'd flip my lid to see a 50 foot squid. I am pumped for this special regardless. Can never have enough on the humbolt. Wow, I'm going to work late Thursday morning. Good work regardless to the people who worked on the dive. Keep it coming.

*edit* I just can't imagine how big a 50 foot squid is. If it really turns out to be a mega-sized humbolt squid, I feel bad for Archi and Mesi (colossol forgot his scientific name). It's like they just keep getting bigger. I mean this is the kind of squid I would read about in books, later to find out it might of been fabricated. Well... maybe not? :) I love the big squids.

Nov 9th, 2007, 09:16pm

Most of us here suffer a similar disposition :smile:

monty

Nov 14th, 2007, 02:06pm

10pm this evening, set your VCRs! Ti your Vos! You your Tubes for people outside of the country*!

*provided, of course, that it is done in such a way that it does not steal income from the kind people at the History channel who we certainly don't want to discourage from this sort of investment!

Nov 14th, 2007, 02:20pm

Please, please, please, upload the clip, someone, somewhere...

daviddickinson

Nov 14th, 2007, 03:58pm

And I thought I was excited waiting to see the Transformers film.........

mosthated

Nov 14th, 2007, 05:29pm

wish i knew how to get it off dishnetwork box, i am going to dvr it.

Danno

Nov 14th, 2007, 07:55pm

I wish it wasn't at 10:00 PM. I unfortunately have field work that is 5 hours from where I live and I have to be out of the house @ 5:00 am. I'm going to be sleepy tomorrow.

monty

Nov 14th, 2007, 09:31pm

thanks to Tony, I can now say that a 108 foot squid would be more than
:bus::bus::bus:

WhiteKiboko

Nov 14th, 2007, 10:18pm

having hanlon and ellis is encouraging....

i thought i just saw a photo of maybe steve with a dead squid?

will have to check the dvr replay....

Clem

Nov 14th, 2007, 10:19pm

:bus:

TONMO is now complete.

Watching the show now. Pretty good, except for the werewolf eye they use to bridge scenes. Roger Hanlon and Richard Ellis are keepin' it real.

WhiteKiboko

Nov 14th, 2007, 10:20pm

Ha! beat ya to it....

Clem

Nov 14th, 2007, 10:30pm

WK, make the werewolf eye go away.

This narrator can't pronounce Mesonychoteuthis. Ellis makes it sound funny, too.

WhiteKiboko

Nov 14th, 2007, 10:36pm

not sure why they kept harping on giant humboldts....

sorry, i missed the pronounciation bit, i almost tried to smoke out my kitchen making quesadillas....

ill catch it later

Clem

Nov 14th, 2007, 11:11pm

Well, it does look like they got footage of a really big squid, but the fellow they had estimating its size seemed to proceed with some dubious asumptions, in particular a quick smear of light which he took to be the squid's eye and used as a fixed reference point when determining the distance from the "eye" to the buccal. The video expert guesstimating size indicated 60ft if a Humbolt, 108 ft if Archi. (This may be a personal prejudice, but when someone gives an unrounded estimate I tend to snark. "At approximately 9:34pm..." etc., etc.)

Whatever it was, it looked very big, quite long-armed and rather slow-moving in its brief appearance. Pretty sure I got a glimpse of tentacles, which appeared short or semi-retracted. Look forward to hearing what the rest of us think once we've got some decent stills to look at.

Cheers,
Clem

WhiteKiboko

Nov 14th, 2007, 11:17pm

i thought the same thing.....

now we now why they kept harping on Superhumboldts...

Clem

Nov 14th, 2007, 11:37pm

I'm admittedly a sucker for big USOs (unidentified squid objects), but the hype about the "monster" tended to obscure the very real achievement of the expedition, which was the succesful deployment, operation and recovery of the first squidcam. Bravo, gents and ladies!

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 01:15am

First commercial break thoughts:

I see what you mean about the werewolf eye.

I also think they could have used some feedback on the narration-- rhodopsin is "little known"?

I pretty much hate all the computer animation, but that's probably 'cause I'm a snob. The "diving with the camera" animation has it swimming like a dolphin. And the fins and funnel are all wrong... particularly when seen side-by-side with all of gonetobaja and crew's great real footage!

Nov 15th, 2007, 02:11am

Suspense not good for ole' ticker :old:

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 03:15am

er, ok, so Scott says he has problems with squids getting their beaks around his forearms. Wouldn't that require the beak to be around 2-3 times bigger than Mesonychoteuthis?

And yes, I see Dr. Steve in a lab coat in a few of the Architeuthis pics.

Bummer about the :snorkel: -> :yuck: stuff, Dale... I hate it when that happens, and I've never had somebody put it into a documentary... Cousteau's editors were apparently kinder in editing that sort of stuff out.

In general, I like your dialogue quite a bit, though, by the way.

The camera squid's a real beauty, and seemed pretty relaxed, all things considered.

I guess my bottom line is about like Hanlon's-- it's big. it's a squid. The image is so noisy I don't think depth of field is too useful because the focus is hard to see. Of course, there's not really any referents... but I didn't think the eye reflection was where I'd expect it to be relative to the arm crown we can see, so I think the base assumption that using that dimension is questionable.

I wasn't able to get mythTV working enough to record it, but I did record it on our crappy DVR. I don't know how to get it off in a digital format, though.

I want to freeze-frame and look at the footage a few more times, but my take is that the "eye to beak" measurement would both involve an unnatural contortion and would not be proportional to the size of the arms for squid I can think of... the eyes are usually straight out from the brain, with the two eyes and the beak forming about an equilateral triangle, right?

I know they were wanting to toss out hypotheses about species, but it got a little silly... Mesonychoteuthis would be rather far afield from its usual stomping ground. However, it seems silly that Moroteuthis wasn't proposed-- the Humboldts have been up in its territory, so maybe it doesn't mind going south occasionally... or is it known that far south? Nixon & Young say it's "north pacific" as well as antactic. I didn't know that it was known to eat sea urchins off the bottom, though (also from Nixon & Young)-- that's interesting.

Anyway, in going back and re-watching in slow-mo and such, I don't see any way that the eye could be that far from the mouth with the arms in that orientation. I just can't make it work. I don't know what that reflection is, but I'm convinced it's not the eye of the squid that belongs to those arms.

More in a sec.

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 04:08am

Here's my take from the peanut gallery:

This is my "poor man's screenshot" (snapshot of the TV) of one of the few frames they used for the "eye" business. Those who didn't see the video will have to take my word for it that the spread arms are there for a number of frames, and are pretty much acting like a squid, since I know in the single frame they're really fuzzy.

5711

Here's an annotated version, with the arrow showing the spot where the measurements assume the reflection from the eye is, and the * being approximately where I think the eye ought to be for any reasonable squid with arms where the arms are.

5712

I'm not making this up, here's another photo (likely taken by Dale, 'cause I got it off of the Sea of Demons trailer, although I flipped it horizontally to make my point.) The arms are in a similar configuration. Notice where the eye is. Also notice the length of the arms compared to the ones in the shot of the giant one, which gives some proportionality to it. In any large squid I'm aware of, the distance to the eye is from the arm crown is far shorter than the length of the arms. Like 10% of the distance. If that spot is the eye, either it has a huge head and tiny arms, or it's in some really weird posture, where it's just flaring the end 20-30% of the arms, but even if that's true, then measuring the center of the flare isn't measuring the distance to the beak.

5713

Anyway, I think the distance estimates are just kooky. And I think some of it's a bit played up-- comparing the 4 or 5 videos I've seen involving Scott diving with squids, it seems like every time there's some new armor that's needed to prevent certain death, or whatever. I'm sure it's no fun to be bitten by a 6 foot squid, but the video makes it out like attaching the camera to the squid was a new, scary, and really dangerous task, requiring special new armor and stuff... I don't mean to downplay the dangers of diving with big squids, but it seems like the hazards aren't portrayed consistently across all the videos...

Those details aside, though, I thought it was a great show. Ellis was pretty good about debunking the exaggerations, and Hanlon seemed to have said a lot of good stuff, although their editing seemed snip stuff out of context a bit.

daviddickinson

Nov 15th, 2007, 05:42am

Is that flash more likely the light catching the edge of the fin? From the pictures, that's the immediate impression it gives me...but that's without seeing it moving...

Nov 15th, 2007, 10:14am

My thoughts EXACTLY; if anyone's claiming to see an eye reflecting, that's a load of moo poo...

I'll stick with a 1.5 meter ML :wink:

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 03:42pm

Well, in all fairness, most cephs trying to be cryptic in inky darkness have their eyes show up more than other body parts. It seems odd that there would be a specular highlight off a fin, where seeing retinas is not so uncommon (think of a cat's eyes glowing at night when it's looking toward you standing under the porch light from out in the darkness.) Humboldts do, though, seem to have deliberate reflective colors for signaling; the flashing they do contrasts between reflective white leucophores (I assume) and reddish dark ('cause there's little red light down there) chromatophores, and they seem to be very active in using that flashing to communicate and/or startle prey or predators. So maybe the squid was in "bright white" during those frames. Still, Dosidicus are usually diffuse, scattering light in all directions like matte paint, not specular, making a shiny spot like metal or glossy paint. And that spot sure looks like a mirror-like reflection off something.

Of course, there's not any reason I can see to think it can't be the reflection off the eye of another random small squid lurking in the inky blackness, where the only thing that gives enough reflection from those LEDs is the eye. That dot is only visible for a few frames, so even if it's a different squid than the visible arms, there's no reason to think it's connected to the same animal, IMHO. But I agree that it's about where I'd expect the fins to be, if it is attached to the visible arms of the big squid.

Another thought, which maybe Dale can shed some light on since he's seen the footage without the dramatic edits, is that if it was really a squid with arms a foot in diameter or whatever they said, that would suggest that the animal is quite far away from the camera, given the field of view (which is pretty wide, given the weird distortions of things near the edge of images when they come in close to bite the camera.) Let's pretend it's a 45 degree field of view, and that the tentacle subtends less than 5% of the video frame (note that I made both of those numbers up, so they're maybe accurate to a factor of 2 either way, but this is back-of-the-envelope.) So, if the arm is one foot across, and that's 5% of the 45 degree field of view, then the animal is in a plane that's more than 20 feet high as seen through a 45 degree arc. This is consistent with the number on the "expert's" screen that the squid is about 25 feet away from the camera (because 10/tan(pi/8) is about 25 if anyone wants to check by trig). This is the expected result, since I'm using his assumptions as a starting point.

The question I'd ask in looking at the raw video are:

what do smaller squids look like in these lighting conditions at that distance?

unfortunately, changing camera direction doesn't give any parallax information to get distance, so even though the big squid is occluded by the mantle of the camera squid at some point, that doesn't give distance or size information, and because the light source is at the camera, we can't see the shadow of the camera squid on the big squid.

Still, I'd be inclined to say that a squid as the sort of extreme guesses would not be that well lit by the lights of the camera. It looks like the visibility there is pretty good for diving, and I assume it's a low-light camera since it's so grainy, but those little LEDs can't possibly be all that bright. Particularly since the light has to go to the squid, get scattered off the white arms (so most of it won't be going back toward the camera, 'cause it's not a mirror-like squid) and then come back to the camera, so that's 50 feet of attenuation by water plus whatever the fractional reflection of the squid arms is.

Dale, in what you remember of the dive conditions, if you were on a night dive with only the camera as your light source, what would you expect the effective visibility for seeing a white thing would be? I know my nice dive light (which died from a battery leak, RIP) was a halogen 8 D cell thing that looked a whole lot brighter than those LEDs, and I wouldn't count on seeing much at 25 feet with it... and my dive light is also much more of a spot, while the LEDs have to be spread over a wide cone to get the whole camera field of view. And because LEDs have a more limited spectrum, they probably have less energy per perceived brightness, so I would expect them to fall off faster in the water than a bright incandescent like a halogen. But I think Dale's impression of the LEDs on the actual camera is far more trustworthy than my possibly-dubious rough calculations.

edit: a pure experimental version that could be done if the guy with the camera wanted to would be just to do a night dive in similar visibility conditions and make a white dummy target with a size scale, and see what the camera sees as you swim away from it. Of course, that assumes that the visibility is the same at 1000 feet on the day of the squidcam as it is at 30 feet or wherever/whenever the experiment is done.

erich orser

Nov 15th, 2007, 04:28pm

Just caught this on DVR - I was working, then sleeping - and I have to go with Monty on this, in fact, he's pretty much said everything I was thinking, particularly about the relative position of the "eye" reflection from the arms being all wrong. However, I don't think this was a Humboldt. We were looking at a much bigger squid of some kind. The arms just seemed a little too long and thin to be dosidicus gigas. Of course I might be mistaken, but I second the suggestion that this might have been M. Robusta. Only really large squid I can think of that lives anywhere near Baja, although Architeuthis debris has been taken from the Channel Islands areas of Southern California.

Regardless, and no matter what the producers/editors did with the finished product, full props and congratulations to Dale and Scott for their end of things. Truly impressive achievement, gentlemen!

Nov 15th, 2007, 07:04pm

Hear, hear!

Reconman

Nov 15th, 2007, 07:10pm

Hi every one, I've got some interesting screen caps from the preview for the giant squid episode that just aired. After reading Monty's post regarding the position of the squids "eye" and looking at some pics of real squids and realizing how wrong the history channel was, I decided to look at the online footage to see if I could find some indicator of the squids true size. Now before I post the pics I would just like every one to know that I'm no video expert and I'm certainly no squid expert. I've just always been very interested in squid, especially when it comes to giant squid. I believe the screen caps I have taken show the actual eye of the squid for two reasons: One because the round, white object is always on the same spot of the squid when visible and Two because it's in a position that would be relative to the squid's tentacles. The pics aren't posted according to their appearance in the clip, I just saved them all at once, just in case some one was wondering. I'll post the pictures in the following order: First picture will be a normal screen capture, the second will be the same screen capture but will have red markings indicating where I believe certain things are.

*Please forgive me if I use the incorrect anatomy terms, I've never really "studied" squid before*

Pic 1 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/1.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/1-1.jpg

The red arrow indicates what I believe to be the squid's eye, the red curve indicates where I think the head stops and the body starts.

Pic 2 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/2.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/2-2.jpg

Pic 3 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/3.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/3-3.jpg

Pic 4 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/4.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/4-4.jpg

If you'll notice in the above pic, the "eye" has "disappeared". But you'll also notice that the end of the head/ start of the body (indicated by the red curve) has gotten closer to the squid's tentacles. This most likely indactes the squid has bent it's self upwards, making the tentacles raise as the head dips below.

Pic 5 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/5.jpg

This picture is the same as the previous photo, but I added some lighting in hopes of getting better visibility.

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/5-5.jpg

Pic 6 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/6.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/6-6.jpg

Again, I indicate what I believe to be the eye with a red arrow and a red curve for the start of the body. But you'll notice that there is a red line running parallel with the squid. This line indicates the possible end of the head, in terms of it's width.

Pic 7 -

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/7.jpg

http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/7-7.jpg

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hopefully these screen captures can gives us a better idea of the squid's actual size. Of course, I could be completely wrong (which there's a big chance I am), but I'm still very curious as to what other's think about the screen captures and my "analysis" of them.

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 07:32pm

:welcome: Reconman! Thanks for the screen captures-- they're much better than my snapshot. Do you have the ability to make a movie or two showing the "big squid" footage, and also maybe some of the footage from the squidcam showing the smaller squids? Particularly if there's a shot showing how fast one of the smaller squids that attacks the camera fades out to the same shade of grey as the big one... 'cause then we could compare how big that one is at the same "brightness" and assume that it's at the same distance as the big one...

I certainly think your theory is believable, and it's in the right area for the eye. An initial thought was that squids almost always use their statocysts to keep their eyes level, but then I realized we have no way to judge if the camera is rotated away from level, so that doesn't tell us much about whether the frame has anything to do with gravity.

So, sure, that, pretty much where I'd expect the eye to be. Whether the fuzzy blob you point at is the eye or not, I couldn't say, but it's a much more believable candidate for it than the one the show used, IMHO.

On the other hand, I'd expect Dale, Scott, Dr. Hanlon, and Richard Ellis to all know much more about squid anatomy than I do, so I'm mildly surprised that either they didn't run the logic past any of these folks... although I guess Dale said he hadn't seen the footage, so maybe they didn't go revisit any of them after interviewing the camera guy and the video expert guy, who seem to be the ones who actually made crazy-big estimates.

Reconman

Nov 15th, 2007, 07:44pm

Thanks for the feedback, Monty! I do have a few programs that will be able to record the streamed footage, but I've got to mess with the settings in order for the recording to play back smoothly. Once I've got a smooth recording, I'll be sure to post a link to it! I also noticed that the camera footage has the smaller squids in color, but the "giant squid" is in a "gray mode". I'm sure it's because it's so deep down but at the same 1,000 foot mark, they still show colored squid that are closer to the camera... Is it possible that the bigger squid is that far from the camera that the light is barely reaching it??? I don't know but it seems like the analyst skipped or looked over some major things.

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 08:09pm

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 08:12pm

Anyone interested in ordering a copy of the show can do it here:

http://store.aetv.com/html/product/index.jhtml?id=108310

SeaWolves

Nov 15th, 2007, 10:22pm

Dear Tonmo and All It's Members,

Last night History Channel premiered a show called: MonsterQuest: The Humboldt Squid Found. One year ago, I worked with the production company to help make this show.

My exposure to this documentary was when I viewed the debut broadcast with the rest of the world on Wednesday, November 14th 2007.

There are several errors in the documentary and since I was directly involved with the expedition as a research facilitator and explorer, I feel ethically obligated to present the facts for what they are and make corrections when errors are made.

I was not involved with the writing of this story, the editing, or the scientific, technical accuracy of this production. The only time I saw the footage of the “very large squid in question” was the day we shot it. I requested a copy of the footage several times to analyze it but was turned down.

I strongly believe that it was Architeuthis (not Dosidicus) but of course cannot confirm it due to the absence of ‘tell tale’ morphological structures like chitenous ring-teeth, wing (fin) shape, and size to mantle ratio and tentacle shape – length.

Below is a black and white of the show. What the documentary claims is titled as Myth. The Facts are presented clearly and a brief Explanation is given. The Explanation does not include my opinion. That is for another forum.

As always, my films, footage, still photographs, observations and diving methodology is available to the scientific and educational communities for the advancement of knowledge and support of on going research.

Myth 1
The squid was 54 feet long

Fact
I doubt the squid could be that big simply because the video footage analysis was not done correctly and subsequently over-estimated the size of the creature.

Explanation
1) The forensic video analyst erroneously identified a scrape on the animal’s skin at the head-mantle intersection was a reflection in the eye. Since the scrape would be a significant distance from the eye, the overall size calculation cannot be used, therefore it is simply not an accurate size assessment.
2) Based on personal experience in situ over a decade of seeing large squid, I strongly believe that the squid in the sequence is large, probably in excess of 25 feet, but considering the quality of the footage a precise size assessment cannot be made.

Myth 2
The “Camera Squid” I was holding was 8 feet long and 200 pounds

Fact
He was only 4.5 feet long and weighed an estimated 45-50 pounds

Explanation
I wasn’t a part of the writing or scientific, technical accuracy. I am 69 inched tall and with long bladed fins am approx 100 inches. If you use that as a scale when watching the documentary you can easily gage the size of the Camera squid.

Myth 3
The Trojan Squid “Psuedomorph” (or “Sue” for short) was incredibly successful.

Fact
It failed.

Explanation
The deployment of Sue was difficult and when performed, no squid approached it and no squid attacked it. If you watch the sequence, you will notice that the ‘jigged’ Humboldt squid that attacked it was actually caught on a traditional jig with a camera attached to it.

Myth 4
The expedition was performed in Cabo

Fact
It was performed solely in Loreto, Baja California Sur

Explanation
I wasn’t a part of the writing or scientific, technical accuracy.

Thank you for your time.

Clem

Nov 15th, 2007, 11:16pm

Scott,

Welcome to TONMO, and thank you for speaking out.

What led you to conclude that the now-infamous white spot was a scrape on the mystery squid's mantle? I see how the debrided integument would expose the reflective white flesh beneath, but it seemed as likely to me that the white spot was another object in the water, either a small squid or fish.

As first posts go, that was a doozy, sir. Hope you'll stay awhile.

Cheers,
Clem

monty

Nov 15th, 2007, 11:43pm

For what it's worth, despite my being a bit of a critic of the size estimate, I think the valuable work you, Dale, and crew did for the expedition came through in the show, and I very much enjoyed watching it. I think you should be proud of making it happen.

I certainly appreciate getting your and Dale's perspectives on it, and hope you can continue with this work. It's unfortunate that sensationalism seems to increasingly be the norm for science reporting, although it's understandably hard for people communicating science to the public to keep their attention enough to report the facts. It sounds like it's also very unfortunate in this case that the producers of the documentary chose to cut off involvement of you, and I'd imagine the other experts they interviewed for footage, from fact-checking the final version, but I also see it as sad that you and others end up disappointed.

I certainly want to thank you and Dale for sharing your experiences and adventures with us. I'm pretty sure I speak for everyone who's been discussing this on TONMO that we pick things apart because we enjoy understanding them, and that we do it out of respect, awe, and enthusiasm for better understanding and appreciation of these animals.

:cheers: Cheers and :notworth: thanks!

erich orser

Nov 16th, 2007, 12:05am

Honestly, Scott, what Monty just said in it's entirety.

Thanks for your great work, and I don't think anyone around here has lost any respect for you or your team. When I saw a previous Monster Quest regarding Sasquatch I feared for you guys, but as always, your portions remain excellent.
I know the hand of producers when I see it, so I took the narration and the other content with a grain of salt and just enjoyed what you guys were able to accomplish.

Wondering if your really large squid might have been Moroteuthis instead of Archi? I haven't heard of them from the Sea of Cortez, but they're certainly found off of Southern California, so who knows?

:notworth:

SeaWolves

Nov 16th, 2007, 01:01am

http://www.sea-wolves.com/images/SCOTT-SQUID_I.KOCHERSCHEIDT.jpg
Here I am in my office this last Tuesday (13 Nov, 55 fsw off Santa Rosalia). This is the second biggest squid I've caught, a 6 ft + squid (1.1m ML) that allowed me to hold him for three seconds, then wrestled free, turned and bit my forearm and head drawing blood through my armor. Ivo will send me the sequence next week from NYNY. He says when the squid was on my head all you could see was my fins, the squid's fins and a giant ink cloud in the middle. (These creatures use ink to hide prey from others as well as for psuedomorphic decoys)

It is so nice having a photographer around to prove the 'fish story'. Ivo was "Pulled and Tagged" by five squid moments later pulling his fins, left arm and strobes. (As any good photographer would be, he was mostly concerned about his strobes)

I am refining a new-hand feeding technique in order to lure and hand catch them for a series of up coming experiments including more 'squidcam' work, tissue and blood sampling (without catch induced stresses) and tagging... and its working!

I Love My Job!

Thank you all for your support. The next time I film a 'Giant Squid' it will be reported my way. Just the facts, no opinions or masked motives and be made available to the scientific community for analysis. Reality is always better than "Hollywoodization".

Sad how some folks rush in to take credit for others work.

All the best to Tonmo and crew!

By the way, if a researcher from the Tonmo group can determine what species of 'Large Squid' my team and I filmed, I would love to hear it. I strongly believe it was Archy due to swim/approach pattern, but of course cannot prove anything. The manner in which it 'flowered' was different than I've observed D.g. move. Nonetheless, it was a big and beautiful animal.

Again, I thank you all.

SeaWolves

Nov 16th, 2007, 01:34am

Kinda funny, "The White Spot" is sounding like "Grassy Knoll"...

The white mark is not an uncommon injury site to D.g. and in fact when I filmed the very big D.g. I dubbed 'Scar' he had a similar wound in the same area. This area is often 'tagged' by victims of cannibalization upon their cannibalistic / predatory squid. It is (as you know, the laceration / avulsion of the skin exposing the impressive muscular and fascia structures below, which are bright white often with a beautiful blue hue from oxygenated cyan blood cells) a chitinous ring teeth scape that occurs when the victim folds back to defend itself often striking around the leading edge of the mantle (of the cannibal). From what I've observed and filmed, the victim usually only gets one strike before it is then immobilized by rapid bites around the occipital folds. (the choice location for a quick kill by cannibals)

This of course isn't the case when a cannibal strikes the fins of a 'jigged' squid. The poor victim just gets torn to bits without a chance to defend itself. (which is why I hand catch them now)

I hope this information helps explain why I am convinced what the origin of the "white spot" within the footage sequence is.

All the best to you and again, my humble thanks for Tonmo's support.

monty

Nov 16th, 2007, 01:43am

I'm not sure if I should say that I'm sorry to hear about your injuries, since you seem to be pleased with them. That's certainly a great picture of an impressive animal, thanks for sharing it with us!

cuttlegirl

Nov 16th, 2007, 07:49am

:welcome: What a fun job you have! Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us.

corw314

Nov 16th, 2007, 08:47am

I missed this the other night. I hope they are planning to rerun at some point.

Great photo! Would love to see more.

And :welcome:

sorseress

Nov 16th, 2007, 09:50am

:welcome: Scott! We're really glad to have your input. As you can well imagine, skepticism about the quoted size has been overwhelming ever since we first saw the trailers. It would be nice if shows like that would try to be a little more accurate, although any show with the title "Monster Quest" can be assumed to be more interested in ratings than truth. Still, there are going to be plenty of yo-yos who will go around talking about the real live 108 foot squid they saw on the History channel! :banghead:

Reconman

Nov 16th, 2007, 04:39pm

Great to hear the truth from you, Scott. The next time you get footage of a big squid, please let us know, I'm sure all of us would be extremely excited!

Reconman

Nov 16th, 2007, 07:04pm

I've uploaded a monster quest segment from the first time seeing the big squid to the end of the episode on photobucket. I'm also currently uploading the video file to rapidshare for those who would like to download it to their HD's to further examine the footage. I'll edit this post once the footage is uploaded.

http://s119.photobucket.com/albums/o157/bunglo/?action=view&current=BigSquid.flv

EDIT: Here's the rapidshare link http://rapidshare.com/files/70236728/Big_Squid.wmv.html

If any one knows of other upload sites that don't require you to wait for the download link, please let me know, thanks.

Danno

Nov 17th, 2007, 03:04pm

Good special. What a gorgeous looking beast even though it is really hard to make out. Was this enough umph to get funding to go back out and do it again? :)

BradB

Nov 26th, 2007, 01:04am

monty

Nov 26th, 2007, 01:23am

I thought it was obvious they would have issues with scale of squids with the camera before seeing the end of this show. I cannot believe a team spending this much money didn't anticipate this problem. The obvious (but possibly expensive) solution would be to attach two cameras to the Trojan squid.

I think it is amazing that the first camera lowered for only a few hours saw a squid that almost any estimate puts at close to the largest verified squids. This is not a several month searching the depths for an elusive animal, we just dropped a camera, and it was right there. Imagine what could be found lowering large numbers of cameras capable of judging scale over several months in several different areas. Whatever this is, we likely will see more of it in our lifetimes.

I don't fault the history channel for false facts - anyone should be skeptical watching anything on TV, especially a series dedicated to cryptozology that offers convincing evidence on everything it investigates. I do think the "8 foot" squid being held by the diver clearly seen on camera was ridiculous and should not have been aired. Stay tuned to the follow-up of this episode: MosterQuest investigates sitings of a 15 foot tall scuba diver off the coast of California.

Still a cool episode, and I think we will live to see many exciting sea creatures in our lifetimes, including squid and octopus that dwarf anything we've seen.

:welcome: BradB. If you scroll back a bit, you'll see that Scott himself (SeaWolves) does address some of your issues, including the 8 foot concern.

It's still interesting that there's enough big squids down there that one showed up in a few minutes... as you point out, the chances of seeming a rare or unusual one in that short time are slim... whether it's an extra-large dosidicus or something else like architeuthis or moroteuthis, it's interesting that there seem to be larger animals that aren't caught much by the fishermen.

I'm still wondering if any of the giant-sized squids school, and cross-species schooling would be particularly unusual.

Clem

Nov 26th, 2007, 01:40am

Hello BradB,

:welcome:

Points well taken, especially about how succesful this first-time effort was.

One thing that's tickled me is the fact that the camera squid wasn't preyed upon, by other Humboldts or the big fella. Did the bright light ward off predators? It might have, but Taningia actually attacked the light rig when it was filmed live. Or, did the attached light illuminate potential threats before they could attack, giving the camera squid time to spot them and take evasive action? It would be interesting to know if a squid that didn't have photophores could successfully adapt to suddenly having a spotlight.

Cheers,
Clem

dusty59

Nov 26th, 2007, 08:13am

Dear Tonmo and All It's Members,

Last night History Channel premiered a show called: MonsterQuest... There are several errors in the documentary....

Hi Scott and Tonmo members! I Googled up info on said program & was lead to this thread- the video footage is great, but I was really sorry to learn of the- let us say- "mischaracterizations" by the producers. I do hold HC accountable for the factuality of its "documentaries."

As has been said, I appreciate your taking time to give the actualities what was seen (reality is such a cool & fascinating thing!) and look forward to seeing more.

steven rhodes

monty

Dec 2nd, 2007, 01:31am

Last night, I was walking around in the fog a bit with a laser pointer ('cause I happened to have it in my pocket) and was thinking about the way that seeing the beam in the fog gave some perspective help in seeing where things were. It occurred to me that a good addition to the "squidcam" that was used by Scott, Dale, & crew would be to put two laser (or 3 if you're a predator fan) pointing out straight from the camera in parallel. That way, they'd put 2 dots of known separation on anything directly in front of the camera, so they'd provide an exact scale reference. Also, beams going off at an angle might provide some 3-d position help. Using a blue or green laser diode would probably work best, since red is attenuated so much by water, particularly since it looked like it was a black-and-white low-light camera anyway so it wouldn't care about the color.

Of course, the squids might be weirded out by this, but they're also likely to be weirded out by a camera with bright lights, so I don't know that a laser light show would make things any more unnatural.

Dec 2nd, 2007, 05:21am

If I am not mistaken, this is exactly what MBARI does on Tiburon?

monty

Dec 2nd, 2007, 10:45am

If I am not mistaken, this is exactly what MBARI does on Tiburon?

you are not, in fact, mistaken: http://www.hboi.edu/eng/division.html

I don't remember seeing that on the MBARI tour at TONMOCON, but we only saw Ventana (which may also have it, but maybe it was turned off and nobody mentioned it... or maybe I just forgot and it resurfaced in my brain pretending to be an original idea...)

Steve O'Shea

Dec 2nd, 2007, 12:13pm

...It might have, but Taningia actually attacked the light rig when it was filmed live....

It didn't 'attack' it Clem, it tried to mate with it. More to follow.

Clem

Dec 2nd, 2007, 12:35pm

Wow, really? Did it leave something behind, something more than a matchbook with a telephone number on it?

Edit: Okay, weird thought: is it possible that the unidentified squid in the video isn't extremely large and distant, and is in fact Taningia? Let me say up front that I don't know if there are records of T. danae from Baja, but Steve's comment and one of Monty's screen grabs has made me wonder about this.

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=5712&d=1195116309

The smear of light thought to be reflected from an eye (erroneously, I now think it's safe to say) appears approximately where that obscured arm ought to terminate distally, assuming the arm isn't bent back towards the tail. Could the light be an arm II photophore?

Clem

Dec 2nd, 2007, 05:01pm

Clem, let's not go there...

Clem

Dec 2nd, 2007, 05:22pm

Well, I did say that it was a weird thought.

Dec 2nd, 2007, 07:12pm

weird, but most certainly not improbable...

gonetobaja

Feb 1st, 2008, 07:40pm

Hey guys, looks like the History Channel is getting rating on the show. They will be playing it again on Feb the 13th at 9:00pm

http://www.history.com/minisite.do?content_type=Minisite_Episod es&content_type_id=56119&display_order=3&mini_id=56117

Another chance to watch the show in case you didnt get enough of the pukeing diver....:shock:

dwhatley

Feb 1st, 2008, 10:28pm

Dale,
Saw you on the Rouge Squid thing the other night (missed it first time around - writers' strike is not too bad for those of us who don't watch much TV) and thought it was pretty decent so you guys are getting some air time this month.

gonetobaja

Feb 7th, 2008, 09:40pm

Yea, I was surprised when I heard about it. I was in Mexico when they played the Rouge Nature show. That was a fun show to do. But its pretty easy to have fun when the guy you dive with (Scott Cassell) already has the entire diving with squid thing covered. It was him, by himself that started this diving with humboldt squid thing. I am just along to help out a friend. I have been lucky to be able to go on those dives and help out when the camera crews are there.

Im sure with the right funding there could be some major discoveries made. Its kind of a shame what happened with the History Channel show. I saw several things on the show that were odviously edited in to add drama.

Its funny to see yourself on TV. Its almost like seeing another person, I remember watching the History channel show and watching the diver barf and thinking to myself....."man that dudes messed up.....:bonk:"

Then my phone rings and there is one of my friends on the other line making barf noises. Then my kids chime in......"hahaha dad barfed!!"

guess it could have been worse and I could have barfed in my rebreather at depth.....:snorkel::goodbye:

Anyways it looks like wit all of the showings that there must be ratings and advertisers wanting time in those slots. Well all we can hope for is for someone reading the internet to want to fund and produce another show on the Giant Squid. Im sure the one we filmed was not as big as they say, however it was 25ft + all day. With what Scott knows its only a matter of time before we see some real awesome stuff.

GTB

dwhatley

Feb 9th, 2008, 04:20am

It is scary enough to think about what could happen with an upset stomach using a plain old regulator and a buddy breather at 30-60 feet (and enough to make my husband exit early and not do a second dive the last time we had the rare opportunity). After your exposure ;>) I was watching a film on divers in dry suits and thinking they would be toast it that happened but didn't even consider the problem with the rebreathers that you guys use!

sayad

Feb 22nd, 2008, 04:05pm

monty

Feb 22nd, 2008, 08:33pm

:welcome: to TONMO. I'm afraid I may have been a bit rude, but since you wrote a one-word first post and have an apparently-unrelated URL attached, you fit my profile of a certain type of spammerl so I removed it. If you're interested in participating in our forums in detail, you are of course welcome, but I'd prefer you not advertise unrelated sites until you've established that you really intend to participate.

thanks!

Octavarium

Feb 24th, 2008, 11:14pm

Awesome

Tintenfisch

Sep 11th, 2008, 07:44pm

Hmm, somehow I missed this completely the first time around. :oops: Think I was on a museum trip at the time.

I had a similar thought to Clem, wondering if the bright spot was a light organ, since it doesn't look like white tissue reflecting the light in the same way the oral faces of the arms do. At first I didn't see any tentacles, but watching a few more times, I think at one stage I can count 9 appendages, although the position of what could be a tentacle doesn't make sense to me, unless the other tentacle is missing. But the part of the arm-crown closest to the star indicating the eye's position in Clem's post above actually looks like an arm stump, so maybe there are 7 arms and two tentacles that I can't distinguish in the footage. If that's the case, though, the bright spot is also very strangely positioned to be associated with any arm-tip.

So, um, that's helpful. :roll:

TaningiaDanae

Sep 11th, 2008, 11:19pm

OK, I was just directed to this thread after watching that Sea of Cortez MONSTERQUEST episode (yes, it has now officially aired in the USA) and trying to start a new thread with the following post:

Earlier this evening I watched an episode of MONSTERQUEST which featured an expedition to the Sea of Cortez to check out rumors of a "Giant Humboldt Squid" in its depths. Yes, I know that your garden-variety Dosidicus gigas is sometimes referred to as a "Giant Humboldt Squid", but that's not what they were looking for. Nor were they seeking an Archi or a Messie. The object of their search was an apocryphal member of the species Dosidicus gigas that had grown to gargantuan proportions.

Members of the expedition (whose names I don't recall, sorry) managed to capture a moderate-sized Humboldt and attach a "squidcam" to one of its fins, hoping that on a deep dive it would manage to catch a video of the mythic "Dosidicus humongous".

Well, for once, a MONSTERQUEST monster quest actually bore fruit.... and more than expected. When the beastie with the squidcam had reached the very end of the camera's tether, it (the squid) began to flash red-white-red-white, apparently signaling danger or distress. Then something unbelievable happened: A truly enormous squid approached the little guy, not attacking it but instead apparently reaching out and examining the camera attached to its fin.

Roger Hanlon was given the opportunity to view the resulting video, and while he couldn't identify the curious giant's species precisely, he said it was definitely "something very big".

The video was then shown to an expert in video forensics (again, sorry, I don't recall his name), and he did some calculations to extrapolate the mega-ceph's size from the apparent distance between its beak and its eye.

What he came up with was truly startling: He stated that if the critter was indeed a super-sized Dosidicus gigas, then the proportional measurements in the video would indicate a length of approximately 60 ft. But then it got even weirder: He went on to say that since the relative placement of eyes vs. beak in an Archi were different from that of a Humboldt, then if what they were looking at was an Archi its length would be about 108 ft. -- as long as a Blue Whale!!!

This really blew my mind. Anyone here familiar with that particular episode? If so, how accurate do those deductions sound? The video was amazing, and I would SO love to hear that there really is a 108 ft. Archi in the Sea of Cortez, but I know that such TV shows tend to sensationalize data, especially when it comes to "the largest", "the smallest", "the strangest", etc.

More information, please!

Your very impressed (or perhaps impressionable) benthic buddy,
Tani
From skimming this older thread, I gather that the big guy was definitely not 108 ft. long; was not an overgrown Humboldt; and was not a Taningia (since the ostensible photophore did not appear to be on the end of an arm).... though I recall reading somewhere that my redoubtable namesakes may reach lengths far greater than the estimated average of 2 to 3 meters.

So, what is s/he anyway? Perhaps the 60 ft. estimate isn't that far off.... in which case, s/he would be longer than the recorded maximum for either an Archi or a Messie. Still bluidy impressive, IMHO!

In any event, now that I and my fellow Yanks have presumably seen the show, I'd love to revive this particular thread. Especially since -- despite the obvious sad associations with 11 September -- it is also quite happily the birthday of our own Doctor Dosidicus, the wonderful William Gilly, and therefore an auspicious day to start talkin' Humboldt once again.

:birthday: William, and cheers to all,
The Tanster