Our latest Architeuthis

[Steve O'Shea]

Another one arrived today; pics soon enough when we defrost it. It's been a few months since we saw one.

 

[DWhatley]

Soooo, I guess we get to compare Eric to the new squid in stead of a London bus?

 

[Steve O'Shea]

That's the plan ...

Gonna spoil him rotten!

 

[Infusoria]

The rattail in question (there were 3) turns out to be Caelorinchus maurifasciatus, about which virtaully nothing is known. As far as I know, all that is known about this species is the original paper describing it. I'll be doing gut-content analysis on them later this week. There was also a barracudina in there as well. These fish were bycatch that just got caught up with the squid in the trawl net.

I was completely wrong with the rattail ID . It turned out to be Caelorinchus aspercephalus, but you knew that anyway...

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Well we just picked it up, and now smell glorious! It's a big female, easily 250kg

 

[Steve O'Shea]

.... and with a little tricky repositioning, got it in the tray and safely transported to work. It will defrost in the back of the van tonight .... and tomorrow .... and .....

 

[DWhatley]

Just don't leave the remains near an apartment air conditioning intake

 

[OB]

Most of the inhabitants suffered permanent loss of smell following the "Mola mola incident", anyway, so I would say "beyond concern", now

 

[Steve O'Shea]

It smells 'fine'. It's a bit damaged, but I'll know more today. (It was still rather frozen yesterday, and it is obvious that its digestive gland ruptured when they picked it up off the beach and transported; there's a possibility that the head is also separated from the mantle.)

Here are just afew shots, a blow-by-blow account of what's involved getting a slippery, smelly mass from the back of the wagon into a tank in cramped quarters (there are two other fixing tanks to the immediate left of this squid .... both full) in a carpark with a few onlookers.

Formalin and cleaning goes on today.

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Tiz heavy and big, though the images don't really show this (we've been spoilt with Colossal).