Hello there, I just saw the documentary on discovery where you found some larval Architeuthis. I was just wondering how they did and if you have any pics?

Andreas

Hi Andreas. So, the doco airs yet again. It's quite old now, a fair few years, and we've been unable to recapture the juvenile Architeuthis in the interim. So, in answer to your question, we've not grown the little fella up yet, but we're out there and trying hard.

We had a smaller-scale expedition for the little chap earlier this year (Feb/March 2004), but the weather conspired against us and we couldn't go to where we wanted to go to catch it (11m seas, 186km/hr winds). We're looking at a repeat small expedition in June of this year - but again it will be weather dependent. We've also got many live squid on public display at an aquarium in New Zealand, but not of the giant variety. We've certainly made huge progress in the types of tanks, water flow, filtration and protein skimming required to keep these things alive, and particularly diet. Hopefully we'll do it soon so as you don't need to see that old documentary again.

Kindest
Steve

I watched some of it last night, too... :heee: Old or not, it's a very well-produced documentary on our favorite beasties... Look forward to details on your possible June expedition -- is this map (http://www.tonmo.com/architeuthis.php) still applicable?

I wish I had seen it. :(

I like squid! :D

so did the hatchlings die? How long where you able to keep them alive?

Andreas

Andreas, I don't think they lasted much longer than a day or so; it's hard to say. After a week at sea a number of the larvae, when recovered from the 3,200 litre tanks I had them in, were terribly decomposed (unrecognisable smears of slime), 1 or 2 were unrecognisable tubes of slime. None was worth keeping. I'd say some lived for a max of 3 days.

I'm certain we can do considerably better these days. We went from shore-based experimentation of 75 days for a deep-sea species to a maximum of 3 days on the expedition. Pretty poor form I must say! But we changed a few things for the expedition - things we thought would improve the setup .....

I watched way back, I can't really remember but what did you feed the tiny critters?