Man allows Humboldt Tentacle hit for experiment

Joined
Feb 11, 2006
Messages
62
They paid me to do it, and I let the squid go un-harmed.

NOTE: Check out the change in color in the squid as his tentacle "tastes" the skin of his arm. Looks like there is some type of toxic bacteria also because there was a pretty severe skin reaction afterwords.


I dont know why this link does now work. If you go onto youtube and search for

guinea pig sea creatures it is part 3

part 4 is in the water with armor.

for your viewing enjoyment......:bonk:

GTB
www.squiddiving.com
 
dwhatley;114181 said:
Dale,
Strawberry Jam is OFF my condiment list from here on out!

Sounds overdramatic on the show:yuck:

I assure you that the guy on the show Ryan Stock is a real stuntman that can take pain few I have seen. When he asks for the down side you have to give him a worst case, or he will do it.:shock:
 
Yeah, I think next time you should rinse with peroxide instead of just water. I wonder if there's actually some venom in the sucker rings... that would be interesting... maybe keeping meat tenderizer on hand would be a good idea, too.

You & Scott & the rest of your crew haven't swollen up like that from other sucker-ring cuts, have you? Although I expect it happens most often underwater, so it gets rinsed pretty fast. I'm thinking that some sort of fast-acting toxin in the suckers could help weaken or immobilize smaller prey like fish... maybe the squids get some sort of symbiotic bacteria in the suction chamber of the sucker... it would be interesting to swab that and see if something could be cultured...
 
Geez... you guys have some serious BALLS. That mark did look like a jellyfish attack, or a weird tattoo. That was like watching a clip of "Jackass", but without the idiocy. Glad I can vicariously enjoy things of this nature via the WWW.

Just thinking, maybe the reaction could be caused by leftover rotten particles of past meals stuck to the sucker teeth?

Is knowledge of Humboldts really so limited as to consider the possibility of some sort of absorbent toxin they release? Just asking. I thought they were relatively well documented. I suppose no one would think during a necropsy to look for transferable toxins in the skin unless there was prior reason to suspect it. Considering the reports of people having neurological reactions after submerging their hands in blue-ring octopus shipping water it doesn't seem far fetched, but it just seems like there would be a less surprising explanation, or that something like that would already be documented.

Do cephs have a "slime coat" Monty? I'm thinking different people have different allergies, like reaction or lack of reaction to cat dander, or wheat germ, or even sunlight in some rare cases. Maybe Ryan's body is more susceptible to something transferred during contact with the arms than others. (Then again, how many reports are there to compare to?)

Lots of "maybe's" huh? Probably making more out of it than I should considering my lack of education about the subject. Interesting topic though for perhaps Steve or someone in his field to look into.
 
all good questions.

I don't think cephs have "slime" in the way that snails do (since they use it to move around) but I know there's one octo species mentioned in Norman's book that has some sort of slime. I think that's the exception more than the rule, though. Anyway, you've probably had more skin-to-skin contact with octos than I have, did that seem slimy?

I admit I'd think that fishermen and researchers probably get grabbed by these squids often enough that I'd expect this to be known if it did exist... but maybe it's just that most people don't deliberately give the squid a chance to cause that much injury. As you say, too, this guy might have been allergic to something, either secreted by the squid or just leftover on its suckers, I suppose.

Anyway, I agree that it's pretty unlikely that there's an unknown toxin, but it would be interesting to investigate... if it's bacteria, it should be possible to culture.
 
dwhatley;114213 said:
I have seen cat scratches leave welts like that so bacteria seem just as likely as toxins.

How cool would it be to discover a higher creature with nematocysts in its skin? :shock: Doesn't contact with anemones and some LPS corals have a very similar effect, like jellyfish stings?

I'm just thinking it could have been several possible things that weren't in direct connection with the squid. Maybe it's too scary for me to think this 8 armed torpedo comes equipped with hundreds of poison-laden suction cup saw blades.
 
monty;114217 said:
all good questions.

Anyway, you've probably had more skin-to-skin contact with octos than I have, did that seem slimy?

Soft and slick, but doesn't leave a residue, so I'd say no. Not slimey (of course a lot of people think snakes are slimey :bonk: ). Reason I asked is because a lot of aquatic creatures have a slime coat or mucous that protects their skin from the elements to a degree. I was thinking if something like that was present it could be the source of the secondary reaction to the lacerations. Just speculation though.

monty;114217 said:
Anyway, I agree that it's pretty unlikely that there's an unknown toxin, but it would be interesting to investigate... if it's bacteria, it should be possible to culture.

With that said, Steve or Kat... have a swab and a fresh specimen handy?
 
does this work any better?


edit: guess not. The magic description is GhEean1DCJU but it's hard to post without TONMO doing the auto-embedding thing. Basically, substitute "youtube" for "foo" in this:

http://www.foo.com/watch?v=GhEean1DCJU

and paste it into your browser.

you also might be able to use the menu item "copy to clipboard" in the youtube player that won't play, and then paste that.
 
Hey everyone!

We had to wash his arm off with a benadryl scrub to get the reaction to go down. From my observations the reaction happened after the first 5 minutes of contact. first was the bloood drawn then after the blood stopped the swelling started. We had epi pens ready in case of an allergic reaction but the benadryl scurb seemed to reduce the swelling pretty fast.

Im not sure if its a toxin or a bacteria but I think that something is there for sure. We have never had this problem because we have always been protected from head to toe. I was bitten once on the hand when I had no armor on and the beak went through my glove like montery jack cheese. The gash on my finger took a month to heal because it kept itching and got this weird lump on my finger where the beak hit the bone. It went away after about 4 months total. I sometimes get a tentacle hit on my forehead between my mask seal and my helmet. It itches pretty good but I never let them hang on long enough to break the skin. Its almost like the suction cup hits first then the action of the suction cup vacuuming on to you drives in the ring teeth. You get a good 1-2 seconds of reaction time to aviod the results.

I still like the reaction of the squid when its tentacles touch the bare skin of the arm. From light "what the heck is going on" color to deep red "You better let me go or im gonna..." color.

The color changing aspect of these animals is one of the things that always amazes me.

GTB
www.squiddiving.com
 

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