POST YOUR COLOSSAL SQUID QUESTIONS HERE

[DWhatley]

uhhh, does that mean Mark has to become a supporter?

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Everyone should!

 

[DWhatley]

But of course - I was just pointing out that all the other hijackers were either staff or supporters

 

[esquid]

Sorry, DoShea. Cricket talk will move.

How big were the colossal larvae?

 

[Tintenfisch]

About 1/1750th of a double-decker bus.

Ed.:

 

[monty]

About 1/1750th of a double-decker bus.

How come no one uses the smiley I made for these sorts of discussions

 

[OB]

Any one know international airing of the documentaries?

 

[baldtankman]

I pleadge that I will become a supporter as soon as someone in or near NZ realises that I am free, to be paid a high salary, for little imput....

And I promise no more Cricket or of topic posts SOS

M

 

[OoNickoC]

Colossal from the doc.

I posted this but cannot find it now...
In the vid they talked about the statoliths for reference to age according to annual growth. Was the age of the specimen determined? I didnot catch it if it was. Reason I ask was the stark contrast in TL relative to prediction.

 

[DWhatley]

Correct me if I missed something but I don't think they took the statolith from the large one since it appeared to be major dissection when Ku took it out of the damaged squid and this one was destined for display.

 

[OoNickoC]

Correct me if I missed something but I don't think they took the statolith from the large one since it appeared to be major dissection when Ku took it out of the damaged squid and this one was destined for display.

Ah. So was it determined that this animal was fully mature?

 

[DWhatley]

It had eggs. He seems to think they brood them inside the mantle and the eggs were not very mature from what I saw (and may not have been fertilized yet - I don't recall if Steve ever pronounced them fertilize or not). Assuming they only breed once (big assumption) then she would have been close, depending upon how long the eggs took to mature.

 

[OB]

I posted this but cannot find it now...
In the vid they talked about the statoliths for reference to age according to annual growth. Was the age of the specimen determined? I didnot catch it if it was. Reason I ask was the stark contrast in TL relative to prediction.

D is correct (of course ): we did not collect a statolith from the large specimen, Ku collected one from the Architeuthis specimen we also looked into to illustrate the great morphological differences between the species. With regards to total length, it would not come as a surprise to me if Mesonychoteuthis follows Teuthowenia to a degree, the latter species which' females' tentacles completely atrophy towards maturity. There is too little data to make a proper regression curve, but the indication is at least there in the current material.

 

[DWhatley]

D is correct.

well, close, I remembered Ku removing the tiny shell remenant but not from which squid.

the latter species which' females' tentacles completely atrophy towards maturity. There is too little data to make a proper regression curve, but the indication is at least there in the current material.

OB, does this suggest that females stop eating like a brooding octopus? That would kind of kill the idea that the female octo doesn't eat because food might contaminate the eggs (or has that theory been dropped already?).

 

[OoNickoC]

Thank you for the info. I stumbled on the show during a get together. It really brought me back onto Tonmo, fascinating stuff!