Old-New Mesonychoteuthis Specimen?

[Clem]

Hi ob,

Good guess about it being a known specimen manipulated by a smaller hand, but...I've never seen that pic here at TONMO, and if that's Kat's hand it makes sense that the pic would have been posted here, yes? Something about the colors and quality of the image suggests to me that it's an older pic. Who knows?

If it isn't the 2003 Ross Sea Specimen, or the 2005 South Georgia specimen, or the 2007 monster, what could it be? The 1981 Russian beast? Could an immature female like that one have a more massive beak than an immature male?

So, any squid biologists out there wearing a silver band on their left thumb, please speak up!

Clem

[ob]

Maybe it's Neil Diamond? Cthulhu knows what he stacks in his basement

[WhiteKiboko]

that fruitcake has a penthouse... thus no basement....

[Clem]

WK,

He can have both if he owns the building.

Maybe that pic isn't of Mesonychoteuthis after all. The Russian news item pertained to February's colossal capture (if the Google translation is accurate), but maybe it's a pic of a big Archie beak with a smallish hand in the frame. It looks like a Meso beak (black and robust), but without sourcing info or other forms of corroboration, I have to concede that it could be a specimen of Journaloteuthis sloppiensis, a giant standing in for the colossal.

Clem

[ob]

Babelfish seems to indicate the 2003 specimen, but the hue of orange on what appears to be arms in the background is more reminiscent of Architeuthis than of Mesonychoteuthis, yet I'm firmly in the meso camp on this one. Maybe it's a rare example of Imaginateuthis photoshoppicus?

[Tintenfisch]

Hi guys,

Sorry, been offline about a week. That photo is the beak of the 2003 Meso specimen, with the hand of a journalist named Kim Griggs, who authored this article. I had thought that the photo appeared in the article, but apparently not - in any case, it was taken by the photographer she brought along.
And just for the record, my hands are the same size as Steve's.

[Clem]

Thanks for the correction, Kat.

You know what they say about ladies with hands the same size as Steve's.*

Clem

*I don't know what they say.

[Tintenfisch]

They say, quite rightly, that we also have big feet. Sigh.

[ob]

Hobbit...