Hi All!! I have a couple of squid questions and I would like the input of the "squid community" (aka y'all).

First, any thoughts on why it took the Japanese a year to release the news of the giant squid sighting?

Second, there has been a great race for the past 10 years to see architeuthis the giant squid alive and well in his natural habitat, but there has been little interest (by comparison) to see the collossal squid (whom I've nicknamed "megateuthis") alive in his natural habitat. If he's bigger and badder than the giant squid, wouldn't there be the same if not more interest in him?

Oh, and I'll just add one last quick question here -- any thoughts on why life at the deepest recesses of the ocean are so much larger? Think architeuthis, the collosal squid, the six gill shark, etc. If light is pretty much nonexistant down there and the pressure can crush even a submersible, how is it these creatures grow to enormous size? One would think it would be the opposite -- they would amount to single celled organisms.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!! :grin:

as for the size question:

http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3045

Hi there, BW

Please, also take into account that the larger a creature gets, the more energy efficient it gets with it... This goes for homeotherms as well for poikilotherms; think the average 'gator or python, surviving on two meals a year, versus gekko's and garter snakes. Gigantism in the abbyss has a lot to do with food abundance: this works either way, with food shortage, think efficency, but, if you look at i.e. the giant tubeworms and mussels near hydrothermal vents, they are a perfect case in point for abundance being the trigger.

If we go mesopelagic, I don't think gigantism is actually that prominent. The megafauna consists of a limited number of species, whereas benthic feeders/scavengers such as sleeper- and sixgill shark seem to pass through, but not so much forage.

On the question of pressure, please further note that only gasses respond to PV=nRT; solids and liquids are simply not (significantly) compressable. You'll find that creatures of the abbyss wil derive their specific buoyancy from (liver) oil content or chemical equilibrium (i.e. ammonium versus sodium in Architeuthis), not so much from gas filled swimbladders. If you ever go fishing for cod, you'll find out why, even pulling them up from, say, 30 meters will cause their swimbladders to rupture; remember, 1 bar added per 10 meters of water column, 30 meters = 4 bar, going to merely 1 at the surface, equals: *pop* "ouch, farewell, cruel world,..., at least the sprat will be happier"

Pressure, therefore, is not a limiting factor.

Regarding the interest in Messie :meso: , from personal experience I'd say most of the general population still doesn't know that they exist! Archie has been around for so much longer that it has been integrated into our folklore and myths, and thus has boggled the mind of scientists searching for the truths to the stories :madsci: . Practically speaking, I'd say Archie is much more accessable as well as it isn't an exclusive subtropical (?) to Antarctic species, such as Messie. I don't know about you, but thats a long boat ride if you're just going to deploy a camera and hope that your bait doesn't get eatten by something else. :sink:

Cheers!

:archi: :tentacle: :mesonych: Now THAT would be a killer hybrid!

thanks, that helps!

First, any thoughts on why it took the Japanese a year to release the news of the giant squid sighting?

Second, there has been a great race for the past 10 years to see architeuthis the giant squid alive and well in his natural habitat, but there has been little interest (by comparison) to see the collossal squid (whom I've nicknamed "megateuthis") alive in his natural habitat. If he's bigger and badder than the giant squid, wouldn't there be the same if not more interest in him?



We scientific types are paranoid.......and tend to keep new info under wraps until we're sure of ourselves plus we're just mean and get a lost of pleasure out of tormenting people (as in letting hints out that we have something super exciting to tell and then saying sorry can't let the cat out of the bag just yet:lol: )

In actual fact I'd suspect that the news was/is being published in a refereed journal (actually I know it is!) This takes time even with the rapid email communication we have now. It has to be sent in, sent to usually 3 referees who send it back with comments, it goes back to the authors for corrections and then back to the editor, once approved it then goes in to be published, which can take time depending on how many papers are waiting to be published, during this the authors keep quiet as they don't want the news to creep out so some unscrupulous types can pinch it and publish in a less stringently controlled/ reviewed journal first. Most journals only publish original material so if it gets out it may not be published in a reputable journal. I don;t know how often that sort of thing goes on but as I said.......we're a bit paranoid!!

As far as pics of Messie are concerned..............well it seems to prefer antarctic type water which is more problematic (and expensive) to work in. But no doubt these pics will come eventually!!!

Cheers

J

right on -- all makes more sense now! :smile:

Ob pretty much answered the depth thing. Really there are very few large animals living in the deep sea. Most of these seem to be confined to the sea floor, such as the huge isopods down there, where as most animals in the water column are tiny. Most of the "large" predatory fish make it to little over a few centimetres, eg the Rat-trap Fish, or the Hatchet fish, the former being about 5cm and the latter being, I think it was the size of a dime, supposedly. Also, most of the life down there won't have air-spaces, which, as we all know, air as a gas is compressible! An animal filled competely with water (eg an Architeuthis) won't have a problem with pressure, as there's nothing for the pressure to push against.
As for the Collosal squid; yep, not enough people know about them. People are only getting over the fact that there is such thing as a 60ft squid, and are only just accepting it as something that crypto-buffs have been swearing were true for years. Now, after digesting that bit of news, can you imagine someone telling you there's and even BIGGER one out there, that makes this huge monster you've just accepted as not a fairytale look like a goldfish!?
For the first question, is this the one that was in the news a couple months ago? Oh? was it discovered a year ago? I thought it was discovered then! Oh well. Shows how much attention I pay to the news!

Graeme- Why did I answer the questions backwards!? hmmm

An animal filled competely with water (eg an Architeuthis) won't have a problem with pressure, as there's nothing for the pressure to push against.

There are still some adaptations required to deal with high pressure, since it tends to reduce the fluidity of cell membranes and interfere with protein function. I'm sure there are also lots of other physiological consequences.

Which leads me to this next question: If sperm whales have vertibraes, how can they dive to the depths that the giant squids live without having that pressure affect them?

First, any thoughts on why it took the Japanese a year to release the news of the giant squid sighting?
Hello Bobwonderbuns (that's a fun name to write),

I'm in complete agreement with the other respondents on that question. I'd add that sometimes such discoveries are kept quiet so the parties involved may have time to leverage their finds into increased funding and cooperation on further ventures. The pics shown at the beginning of the "Living Architeuthis Photos"thread, of a living giant squid captured in surface waters off Kyoto, have, to my knowledge, only been available online and at a single website. Tsunemi Kubodera was the recipient of both that animal and (I hear) many more photos of that event. Apparently, he sought to use that material as fundraising tools for his robot camera project. We still haven't seen the bulk of the Kyoto material, but it was sufficient to secure the meager funds Kubodera and Mori put into their succesful venture.

Sometimes big finds are kept quiet and leveraged to build support for the next, bigger finds.

Cheers,
Clem

Which leads me to this next question: If sperm whales have vertibraes, how can they dive to the depths that the giant squids live without having that pressure affect them?

they are adapted to do so!!! They have a mammalian dive reflex which lowers the heart rate (we have it too although we lose some as adults, it's triggered by very cold water on the face...which is why many kids survive under icy lakes etc for a long time with no apparent damage). Also their muscles are full of myoglobin to store oxy, their lungs collapse etc etc

J

What do they do with the carbon dioxide, and how do they deal with decompression on their way back up?

I was wondering why dont people just plonk a deap sea camera with a light on the head of the sperm whale and watch it go diving?

Sperm whale reality TV, it would b awesome, it would be like first person archyteuthis hunting.

exactly, don't they get "the bends"? I'm still amazed the pressure doesn't squish them.

I was wondering why dont people just plonk a deap sea camera with a light on the head of the sperm whale and watch it go diving?
Hello Feelers,

It's been tried. There's some neat footage of sperm whales diving, but no Archies in the bargain.

Cheers,
Clem

I was wondering why dont people just plonk a deap sea camera with a light on the head of the sperm whale and watch it go diving?

Hi Feelers,

That's actually been done. National Geographic in 2001 sponsored a project to attach a camera to a Sperm Whale's head as it took a deep dive. The camera got knocked off during the dive as another whale in the pod nudged it. Although no giant squid was photographed, the project was still a great success as it demonstrated aspects of whale behaviour never seen before. It's a amazing how tightly packed the pod was.

More details here if you are interested:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/crittercam/deepsea/

I've seen that clip, it's awesome. They didn't know how closely packed together the whales got during those dives -- squashed together like a can of sardines. It was very fascinating.

exactly, don't they get "the bends"? I'm still amazed the pressure doesn't squish them.

the bends mostly happens as a result of breathing in air at high pressures; since on SCUBA when you take a breath, you're getting a lot more air in the volume of your lungs than you would at sea level. This doesn't happen when you're holding your breath, because you're not pulling in new air at pressure, you're just holding it steady. Cetaceans have some mechanisms to allow their lungs to collapse so they don't "cave in" from the big pressure differential, but since they're not breathing pressurized air from a tank, they're in a lot better situation, because the air in their lungs is still a lot closer to surface pressure.

Some of those critter cam things are cool

There are still some adaptations required to deal with high pressure, since it tends to reduce the fluidity of cell membranes and interfere with protein function. I'm sure there are also lots of other physiological consequences.

Yeah, that's right! Also, calcium is soluble at that pressure, which is why a lot of invertebrate critters down there have silica exoskeletons, instead of calcareous ones... if I remember correctly.

What do they do with the carbon dioxide, and how do they deal with decompression on their way back up?

Erm... I think it's got something to do with them having a more efficient breathing mechanism than us. I can't remember exactly, but they've got a greater tidal volume when breathing (I mean relative to a human's- size for size), use of Myohaemoblobin, which I can't remember, but I think it might bind with CO2 as Haemoglobin binds with O2 (or maybe Myohaemoglobin just binds with more O2 than Haemoglobin, I really can't recall). They also have a reduced reaction to CO2 anyway, but I'm not sure how. Plus they take deeper and less frequent breaths than other mammals, to begin with. A Diving reflex. They also have a greater blood volume, being around 10-15%, compared to us, which is about 7%. This means way more storage of oxygen. I'm not sure about the Bends though, which is brought about when the Nitrogen part of air, that's in your blood, dissolves at pressure, and then reforms as a gas again when the pressure lessens, causing bubbles in you bloodstream. I'm guessing that they may suffer from it.

Graeme

Cetaceans use their muscle tissue for oxygen storage, by means of the aforementioned myoglobin.

Their lungs are free to collapse under pressure, as their saturating breathing prior to a prologed feeding dive (up to an hour or so in sperm whales...) allows them to draw oxygen from internal storage, rather than from the relatively small volume of air inhaled at the last breath at the surface...

My :twocents: if i may? The last breath sperm whales take is thought to be for vocalisation/biosonar so is maintained in the nasal passages and airways, not the lungs, although since they're not breathing at depth there's little possibility of rupturing lung tissue on surfacing.

There are indications of decompression damage in sperm whale bones, mostly in older animals. See: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/01/050111173124.htm Quite how they manage the effects of decompression under normal circumstances is not certain, however, rapid surfacing caused by a whale being disturbed during a dive (possibly by some sources of loud underwater noise) are thought to be responsible for decompression sickness possibly leading to stranding. At least, that's what i hear.

Cheers
Nik

Good call on the reserve air! Sperm whales need it for both detection as well as stunning their prey. The latter is still a bit of conjecture, but given the absolutely huge accoustic lense they have in that forehead of theirs...

On decompression: air goes in at 1 bar and gets pressurized by the surrounding waterpressure acting on the whale's body as the animal dives, but as a consequence the volume goes down, so: there should really be no decompression related overfilling (causing rupture) or caisson type bubble formation in the animal as it surfaces. You can't have oversaturation if no hyperbaric air entered the lungs to equalize the pressure at depth.

The strandings hypothesis based on (underwater) testing of new types of extremely loud sonar, is more likely related to internal damage and haemorraghing of the ears, mainly, not decompression. This type of damage was seen in strandings just following sonar testing, nobody seems to think that's a coincidence.

I know that there are reports on stranded beaked whales, showing signs of the bends following sonar excercises. How to explain that from a physicist's point of view, I wonder.... Partial gas pressure increases, forcing excess nitrogen into the bloodstream?

I also wonder whether the "recent" Spanish strandings of five Architeuthis in one week were likewise correlated to testing at all, hmmmm. Could just have been mating season, of course...

Regarding decompression: I would expect that the increased pressure would lead to greater solubility of nitrogen in the blood, which could still present problems in a too-rapid ascent. I appreciate that the relative volume of dissolved gas is lower when supplied from a single lungful taken at 1 bar than from a continuous high-pressure stream (as used in SCUBA dives), since there's simply less gas available in the former situation. According to these guys (http://www.livescience.com/animalworld/whale_bends_041224.html), (possible) osteonecrosis has been observed in whale skeletons that predate sonar by many decades. Still, I suppose that decompression may not be much of an issue in the normal life of a whale (or any other deep-diving animal).

:whalevsa:

Looks plausible to me. I wonder what would happen if I forcefed a spermwhale with corn, send it down to, say one and a half kilometers below, and then dangle some nice fresh squid near the surface.... :popcorn:

I find it interesting that the whales are still affected by the bends. They clearly have evolved adaptations to deal as best they can with such circumstances, but you'd think after so many years of this kind of behaviour that they'd get to a point where it no longer affected them. Hmmm! Very interesting, none-the-less.

Cheers!

It's hard for evolution to overcome the laws of physics, more's the pity. But some of the solutions it does come up with are quite interesting. I mean, the shark, the icthyosaur and the dolphin all more or less have the same outer shape, but the shark doesn't have sonar and neither the dolphin or the shark have those huge ictyhosaur eyes.

It makes one wonder about the evolutionary path followed by the sperm whale. Which came first, eating squid or diving deep? It seems to me that the ancestor of the sperm whale may have eaten smaller squid at the surface; evolving to be able to dive deeper, brought it to a range where it could begin to predate giant squid.

From what I understand pressure does funny things to enzymes like changing the shape of the molecules so they are no longer as efficient. So deep living organisms have evolved different enzymes than their shallow water cousins. i wonder if sperm whales take advantage of the chemical changes caused by pressure differential?