Giant Squid Bites on Whales

[Rob Romero]

Watching this fantastic clip, you not only see a sperm whale devouring a giant squid mantle, and ring scars on a live sperm whale, you see something I’d never seen or heard of before; what appears to be a fresh gouge mark (or two) from where a giant squid took a bite out of the whale’s head; HOW OFTEN HAS THIS BEEN DOCUMENTED?

 

[tonmo]

Hi Rob - great vid, thanks for the link!

Sucker ring scars are not at all an uncommon find on beached sperm whales. I believe we do have some mentions and pics of this in our Whale Strandings forum.

The sonic capabilities of the sperm whale and potential use against giant squid has renewed significance in light of recent studies about the severity of damage to squid due to sonar blasts.

 

[Mike Bauer]

looks like something for squidboymom to look at.

 

[squidboymom]

Yep...those topics of dicussion come up quite frequently at our house!

 

[Sordes]

I think the bite wasn´t made at all by a giant squid but more likely by a cookiecutter shark, which often parasitize on sperm whales.

 

[tonmo]

Interesting thought... but aren't cookiecutter shark bites typically a pretty deep gouge? I didn't watch the whole video (and it's been a while ) but what I looked at looked more like surface marks...

 

[Sordes]

Most of the scars are obviously scars from suckers, but the two large deffects which were described by Rob Romero as "gauge marks" really look not like wounds caused by a squid beak but a lot like a cookiecutter shark wound.

 

[Sordes]

For comparison, a cookiecutter shark wound on the head of a pygmy sperm whale:

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