NEW GIANT SQUID VIDEO REPORTED

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyID=2006-12-22T084024Z_01_T148997_RTRUKOC_0_US-SQUID-GIANT-JAPAN.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-scienceNews-2

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/22/healthscience/AS_SCI_Japan_Giant_Squid.php

It's a Cephalopodmas Miracle!

But I can't find the actual video yet...

Zee News (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0i-0&fd=R&url=http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp%3Faid%3D343630%26ssid%3D26% 26sid%3DENV&cid=1112186397&ei=x7aLRarpEbKQHP31yfgM)
Japanese researchers film live giant squid, say numbers may be ... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=R&url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/22/healthscience/AS_SCI_Japan_Giant_Squid.php&cid=1112186397&ei=x7aLRarpEbKQHP31yfgM)
International Herald Tribune, France - 1 hour ago
AP. TOKYO: A Japanese research team has succeeded in filming a giant squid live — possibly for the first time — and says the elusive creatures may be more ...
Giant squid caught on video by Japanese scientists (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-1&fd=R&url=http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx%3Ftype%3DscienceNews%26 storyID%3D2006-12-22T084024Z_01_T148997_RTRUKOC_0_US-SQUID-GIANT-JAPAN.xml&cid=1112186397&ei=x7aLRarpEbKQHP31yfgM) Reuters
all 12 news articles

More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/0-0&fd=R&url=http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/22/healthscience/AS_SCI_Japan_Giant_Squid.php&cid=1112186397&ei=x7aLRarpEbKQHP31yfgM)

Giant squid caught on video by Japanese scientists (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/1-0&fd=R&url=http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp%3Faid%3D343635%26ssid%3D26% 26sid%3DENV&cid=0&ei=x7aLRarpEbKQHP31yfgM)
Zee News, India - 18 minutes ago
Images of the squid -- a relatively small female about 3.5 meters (11 ft 6 in) long and weighing 50 kg (110 lb) -- were the ultimate prize for zoologists at ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/1-0&fd=R&url=http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp%3Faid%3D343635%26ssid%3D26% 26sid%3DENV&cid=0&ei=x7aLRarpEbKQHP31yfgM)

It's a Cephalopodmas Miracle!
:santa: :cthulhu:

Busy day brewing today!! Unfortunately Dr. O'Shea is without Internet access until Jan 11!!

Here is the video:

http://today.reuters.com/tv/videoStory.aspx?isSummitStory=False&storyId=0e4daf2c9503387b6a614482bc1d5d8a 4ae79972&WTmodLoc=NewsArt-L2-RelatedVideo-3

A few more seconds available via the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/bb_rm_fs.stm?news=1&bbram=1&bbwm=1&nbram=1&nbwm=1&nol_storyid=6203199

WE LOVE YOU MONTY

Look at the second shot of the scientist turned fisherman pulling the poor brute in; the eye seems to open and close, amazing footage! Some idiot stole my and some of my colleagues' docked laptops today during our ten minute break... This is a perfect gift to compensate, however!

PS: Watch the "tiger striping" effect on the upper arms, that's a novelty to me at least!

PPS: Thank (fill in deity of choice) for network backup...

Stunning photo here too:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,238263,00.html

WOW! At last this clearly shows Architeuthis' eyes as they appear in life. The above mentioned "tiger striping" in higher resolution appears to be abbrasion, as usual :sad:

http://www.foxnews.com/images/248463/0_62_giant_squid_2.jpg

Humbolt??

EDIT: Nevermind, watched the video, they say it's 3.5 meters, a juvenile Architeuthis... I presume that's 3.5 meters end-to-end, not just the mantle...

Why are they saying for the first time? Wasn't one filmed months ago? Sure the Footage was nowhere near as cool as this but it was filmed, unless i missed something?

Last time was photographs, this time is video!

CNN spreading more lies.... saying it was 24ft instead of 3.5m...also perptuating the 60ft lie...

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/12/22/giant.squid.ap/index.html

I was just bout to post bout this, but you beat me to it!

It says its 24 feet long, but the picture of it on the floor next to him makes it look much smaller.

That´s really great to see it finally alive, I just saw it in the news and some minutes ago in TV. The eyes are really interesting, especially because they seems to have a similar lid like the humboldt squid, and not the round lidless shape which is shown in nearly every drawing or model of the giant squid.

Today's conspiracy question: did Dr Ku know about the "Cephalopodmas" quasi-holiday that PZ Meyers (and seemingly few others) has been pushing, and time it deliberately, or is this just a fortuitous coincidence?

I'm wondering if the video ends where it does because the jet of water hit the camera, or if that's just edited for the most mass appeal segment. I was hoping to see more evidence to counter the "architeuthis is kind of weak" theory/myth, but it seems to be fairly laid back, rather like "hey, let go of me, and my food, you jerks, I'll shoot some water at you, and maybe you'll wise up!" not "I shall lash out and thrash you all!" That certainly seems in character for cephalopod personalities, though-- I was just hoping for solid evidence so I could remove the "It is believed that giant squids are too weak to lift their tentacles out of the water" claim from wikipedia... (I still don't believe it-- it seemed pretty clear that it could have lifted its arms out without any trouble; although it does seem like the tentacles are specialized for the long-range grab, so it's likely it's even more disinclined to use them for anything but prey capture...)

I agree with OB on the eye, it looks much more lidded than bulbous, the way they're often portrayed in models. This looks like it has great potential for eye preservation. It's probably desirable to preserve the whole animal, but I'd love to see the results of some detailed eye dissection-- retina electron micrographs, put some rhabdomeres into a blender and compare the photopigment to the well-studied GPO rhodopsin, etc. Getting an idea of the lens and retina geometry would be neat, too-- do they have any regions of higher acuity? It looked like the pupil was a cat-eye slit more than the horizontal slits and W shapes we see in most surface-dwelling cephs; it seems like the deepwater ones (at least Vampyroteuthis) have rounder pupils, but I don't remember seeing any cat-like ones on squids before... Also, it looks like the picture of a dying architeuthis we determined had been photoshopped around the eye was fairly accurate, although the yellow-eye effect wasn't in this video, that could easily be related to the flash picture...

I was just bout to post bout this, but you beat me to it!

It says its 24 feet long, but the picture of it on the floor next to him makes it look much smaller.

it seems reuters has the 3.5m, AP 24 ft....

I doubt if any of the major news agencies would accurately report the difference between Total Length and Mantle Length as the terms might be a little obscure to someone outside the field.

24ft = 7.3m.

Fascinating story, how utterly unexpected!

From the reuters pic with Ku behind it: http://i.today.reuters.com/misc/genImage.aspx?uri=2006-12-22T084018Z_01_T148997_RTRUKOP_2_PICTURE0 .jpg&resize=full, it looks to me like the ML isn't more than 2m, and probably more like 1.5m unless the good doctor is quite tall.

:mrgreen:

From the reuters pic with Ku behind it: http://i.today.reuters.com/misc/genImage.aspx?uri=2006-12-22T084018Z_01_T148997_RTRUKOP_2_PICTURE0 .jpg&resize=full, it looks to me like the ML isn't more than 2m, and probably more like 1.5m unless the good doctor is quite tall.

I agree. Total length cannot be 24 ft when looking at that picture. its a shame that architeuthis is so often misrepresented in mainstream media. I wonder what the reason for perpetuating such a lie would be in an otherwise incredible event.

And that's the bestest Hexmas present of all!

I must remember to watch Daily Planet tonight!

I agree. Total length cannot be 24 ft when looking at that picture. its a shame that architeuthis is so often misrepresented in mainstream media. I wonder what the reason for perpetuating such a lie would be in an otherwise incredible event.
I agree -- lack of diligence, it would seem.

Here is an excerpt from Dr. Steve O'Shea's article, Giant Squid and Colossal Squid Fact Sheet (http://www.tonmo.com/science/public/giantsquidfacts.php):

Architeuthis dux (Fig. 6)
Architeuthis is frequently reported to attain a lotal length of 60 feet. The largest specimen known washed ashore on a New Zealand beach, Lyall Bay (Wellington) in the winter of 1887. It was a female and "in all ways smaller than any of the hitherto-described New Zealand species" (Kirk 1887); it measured 55 feet 2 inches in total length, exaggerated by great lengthening (stretching like rubber bands) of the very slight tentacular arms; its mantle length was 71 inches (1.8 m). A comparable-sized female (ML 1.8 m) measured post mortem and relaxed (by modern standards) would have a total length of ~ 32 feet.

Mantle length (as opposed to total length) is the standard measure in cephalopods. Architeuthis is not known to attain a mantle length in excess of 2.25 m. Standard Length (SL) is the length of a squid excluding the tentacles; in Architeuthis this measure very rarely exceeds 5 m. The rest of the animal's length, to a total length of 13 m, is made up of the two long tentacles. Of 105 specimens that we have examined, none has exceeded these figures (Fig. 7).

Looks like its about 200 feet long to me. I am never going in the ocean again!

How freaking cool!

Looks like its about 200 feet long to me. I am never going in the ocean again!

How freaking cool!

Dont forget...Eyes the size of Dinner Plates!

I wonder if there's any hope that Dr Kubodera will put the uncut full length video on the web... I converted the CNN streaming one to mpeg, but I don't think it would be legal for me to repost it. But I'd love to see the whole event!

Dont forget...Eyes the size of Dinner Plates!

Eating whales and battling london buses....

or so the internet tells me.....

Looks like its about 200 feet long to me. I am never going in the ocean again!

How freaking cool!

Looks like its about 200 feet long to me. I WANT TO GO INTO THE OCEAN!!! :mrgreen: :banghead:

This is totally exciting, I think I should move to Japan, that's where all the action is!

Was this location in close proximity to the Sept 2005 still photographs? If so, it's interesting to see that Dr Kubodera and his team seem to have pinpointed a perfect location to catch and film Architeuthis. Either that, or he has been very, very lucky. Either way let's just hope that now that the bait has been proven to work twice that a method can be devised to film the beast in its natural habitat without catching and killing the poor brute. Fingers crossed for the future; hopefully the experience gained in the two incidents will mark a watershed in Architeuthis behavoural observational methods and prove a catalyst to propel further research.

You know it's funny to think that after all the time, effort and money spent on attempting to track and film the giant squid (submersibles, whale cams etc), the two successful occasions have been via the application of a simple line and hook. It makes one wonder how many other giant squid have been caught by fishermen in this manner and have been unreported being cast adrift as being far too large to land.

Another variation of the footage is available here, this time seemingly raw and without commentary:

http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_356164541.html

ok, I admit it. I hardly ever come here. but when I heard about an architeuthis being caught on cam. I just had to come to the best ceph source I know.

either way, you guys didn't let me down! great news, with great footage!

Researchers Catch Live Giant Squid (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/1-0&fd=R&url=http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/10594308/detail.html&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)
Hawaii Channel.com, HI - 9 hours ago
Japanese researchers captured a 24-foot-long squid earlier this month. But they believe this was the first time anyone has successfully ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/1-0&fd=R&url=http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/news/10594308/detail.html&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)

Researchers capture live giant squid on film for the first time (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/2-0&fd=R&url=http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/%3FArID%3D176826%26SecID%3D2&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)
News 8 Austin, TX - 12 hours ago
By: AP. TOKYO -- Japanese researchers have successfully filmed a giant squid live, perhaps for the first time. ... The squid died while it was being caught. ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/2-0&fd=R&url=http://www.news8austin.com/content/headlines/%3FArID%3D176826%26SecID%3D2&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)

Giant squid caught in Japan (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/3-0&fd=R&url=http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/sc/122206giantsquid&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)
Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone, CA - 14 hours ago
In this handout photograph, Tsunemi Kubodera, chief of Division of Invertebrate Zoology at the National Science Museum of Japan, sits behind a Giant Squid on a ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/3-0&fd=R&url=http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/sc/122206giantsquid&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)

Giant squid captured! (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/4-0&fd=R&url=http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1222-squid.html&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)
Mongabay.com - 17 hours ago
... Giant squid are marine mollusks related to cuttlefish and the octopus. They are deep-ocean dwellers that can grow to at least 10 ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/4-0&fd=R&url=http://news.mongabay.com/2006/1222-squid.html&cid=0&ei=_weNRduOL8rIHMi1lPsM)

Hey Phil, your comments are spot on... nothing beats a line with bait, it would seem! And thanks for posting that untarnished video. Amazing (and sad).

Dragonfish, don't be such a stranger! :wink: (but I'm glad you thought of us)

Urrrr... Thanks octobot, I think we've caught the gist of it:wink:

Any thoughts on the disturbance in the water in the third part of the video sequence (the "floater" bit)? Are these tentacles lashing or deaththrows/water jetting out of the syphon?

I just love this little christmas surprise.

ob, definitely seemed like siphon activity to me... I think there's a bit of it in the 2nd part as well.

Total agreement, hadn't seen the "untarnished" video yet, needed to install a new Flash version first.

As a further PS: I think the way the mantle appears joined with the head reminds me a lot of the "large unidentified squid" caught on remote camera a few years back where we couldn't quite make our minds up on species and size; I will definitely revisit that photograph.

PPS: Anyone have access to jmonthly.com? I was trying to access the attached.

Awesome stuff. Now we just need to outfit a few regular fisherman in the same area with video cameras asking the to video stuff like this. I think you could do this for quite a few unknown species and come up with some worthwhile footage. It's got to be cheaper to send out 12 mediocre cameras with regular fisherman than to go out in a boat dedicated to this.

I agree with monty on the arms issuse though, this is a creature that leaves scars on whales, so I am pretty sure that it has the strength to lift its arms out of the water. It might be lazy, but I don't think that it is weak.

I think you are refering to the still photos, which when they showed them in sequence looked like a video. I too thought that until I saw them replay the "still photos" on this latest news video.

Sorry. Previous post was in reference to this:

Why are they saying for the first time? Wasn't one filmed months ago? Sure the Footage was nowhere near as cool as this but it was filmed, unless i missed something?

Another variation of the footage is available here, this time seemingly raw and without commentary:

http://cbs11tv.com/topstories/local_story_356164541.html

Much nicer to see a longer, raw cut. Looks like she's almost lifeless. Sad but exciting too.

It does seem weak, not because architeuthis is weak, but because it's about 30 seconds from dying! (it seems to me)

I’m only a novice “squid hugger” but here are some of my observations about the video: Yes, it is interesting that there is always an attempt for squid squads to claim that their squid photo was the first live squid photo. Although there have been many “first” photographs, I think this is the first video. I do wonder why Kubodera didn’t attach a video camera on to the hook two years ago. And I, like many of you, wonder what is left out of the recent film. Since the camera is filming from the boat, it can be assumed that the camera didn’t record the squid in its “natural environment” but recorded the squid hooked on the surface. The video that was cut out likely shows the struggle of the “squidmen” reeling in the squid. Unless there were two cameras, one on the hook/line and one on the boat, then the rest of the film is only relevant to see just how much the people struggled in reeling the squid in. The struggle is not really media friendly, especially because the squid did die. No one wants to see that kind of violence in a scientific discovery story, right?

And as many people indicated, the squid was strong enough to require two people to reel her in, meaning that the squid is probably strong enough to lift its arms out of the water. But here is my question, because of the (here is where I sound really novice) ammonia concentrations(?), wouldn’t being on the surface make the squid heavier than when it is at depth? What I’m trying to ask is: is it possible that the squid would have a more difficult time getting its arms out of the water simply because it is not suppose to be at the surface? In general, it seems like that question is not as relevant as some other questions simply because squid are only at the surface when dying or dead or in some type of distress. I could be misunderstanding this, let me know.

About the tiger stripes on the arms (or are they called legs?), I’m not sure of the significance of that. Is it because the giant squid does in fact change colors, something I was told was a myth (Because they live in pitch black there would be no need?) Would the tiger striping mean that is a type of distress call as shown with other squids? There is likely many cuts, etc., on the squids arms, mitigating the tiger stripe evidence, although I did noticed that the mantle changing between white and red, too. (By the way, that red is beautiful!)

Thanks for all your comments—I’m always tuning in to hear what you say about the two years ago pics, to now, and even when the Crocodile hunter passed away.

Cheers and Merry Cephalopodmas.

:welcome: Tina, interesting questions you have...

The ammonia in the squid's tissues makes the animal weigh essentially zero in the water (because it's almost exactly the same density as water)-- unlike animals with air bladders, since it's mostly incompressible, its density shouldn't change appreciably at different pressures, so it should weigh effectively zero at the surface, too. However, as soon as part if it goes outside the water, that part will weigh a lot (in fact, exactly what the same volume of water weighs!) so its arms and tentacles are probably not really optimized for moving their own weight, but they are well-suited to wrestling with prey and fending off whales, so one might think they'd be strong enough to lift themselves just based on that...

As for color changes, Architeuthis does have chromatophores that allow it to change color (notice how red it is in the live video, but it's paler in the after-death pic) Nixon & Young note that the brain area that controls the chromatophores in Arichiteuthis is less delveloped than a lot of cephs that live up in the light, so it probably doesn't do much that's too sophisticated, though. Certainly, being red at the surface is pretty much being black at depth, because the red end of the spectrum gets filtered out very rapidly by water, so the red color is probably useful for sneaking up on lunch. Since these animals have such huge eyes, it may be that they can see each other's coloring even when most animals can't see them at all, so they could use color changes to signal others of their species... However, it's probably quite possible that the stripes are more the result of trauma from the capture than patterns that the squid creates...

Giant Squid Seems Built For Speed (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/2-0&fd=R&url=http://www.playfuls.com/news_003586_Giant_Squid_Seems_Built_For_ Speed.html&cid=0&ei=I1KSRYGOMbKQHP31yfgM)
Playfuls.com, Romania - Dec 23, 2006
A breakthrough video of a giant squid led Japanese biologists to conclude that the mysterious sea beast is capable of high-speed movement through the depths. ...


More... (http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=T&ct=us/2-0&fd=R&url=http://www.playfuls.com/news_003586_Giant_Squid_Seems_Built_For_ Speed.html&cid=0&ei=I1KSRYGOMbKQHP31yfgM)

Heavens! I must be the last person in the world to see that video, and have spent the best part of the morning struggling with dialup just to download it, and read the articles!

Hmmmm. That squid is very much alive! It is propelling out water from that siphon every 3 to 5 seconds, and doing so forcibly (when of shorter periodicity, ~ 3 seconds, there is less water expelled (less blast), so the animal has not completely inflated the mantle; when ~ 5 seconds there is a large blast of water, meaning complete inflation in that time). The fact that it does not lift those arms out of the water is not because it is exhausted (I'm not saying it is because it is too weak to do so, but it is not because of exhaustion; there could be some other reason).

I am aware of 3 separate current/imminent expeditions to find & film this animal in situ, and there are bound to be more that I don't know of. It seems like everyone is having a go at it. (My money is on Ku; he does have some tremendously expensive equipment down there, so the next piece of footage you probably see from him is GS IMAX (no, I don't know any secrets; I just know what backing and equipment he has.)

Congrats Ku!

The 11 ½-foot long giant squid was not the largest ever recorded. That record belongs to a specimen found in 1887 that measured 60 feet from end to end; that's as tall as the average six-story building.

Thank goodness they brought up that measurement again. :roll: