Squid beaks from whale stomachs

Steve O'Shea

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Hi all. Tintenfisch and I have just returned from a talk we gave on giant squid, giant octopus and other mysterious denizens of the deep, up country a bit. Whilst at the venue someone from the NZ Department of Conservation gave us a chilli bin of squid beaks (at least a thousand beaks) recently extracted (during autopsy) from the stomach of a stranded sperm whale (of length 13m, or ~ 40 feet). Therein were several (2 at least) giant squid beaks, and at least 4 (we haven't really looked at them in detail yet to give precise counts, and they still smell seriously evil and are covered in parasitic worms) of those belonging to Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. Those of Mesonychoteuthis just leave those of Architeuthis for dead in the seriously evil stakes - they're considerably larger and CONSIDERABLY THICKER - almost capable of doing the 'cutting through cable' trick that you'll sometimes read about (with respect to Architeuthis).

In the months to come we'll try and describe a few of these beaks online for you (as a small project), as we try and reconstruct what species this whale had been eating, and where it had been eating them; it is really quite interesting stuff!! We also have the stomach contents of three pygmy sperm whales (Kogia) to examine, so the comparison might be of interest to people here.

Mesonychoteuthis is an Antarctic squid species (none is known from New Zealand waters, or at least none is represented in collections from NZ waters), so the sperm whale, stranding in subtropical waters, was likely feeding quite a bit south of New Zealand. I don't know the cause of death of the sperm whale, whether sick or disoriented, but will let you know as soon we find out.
Steve & Tintenfisch
 
Looks like we'll be resurrecting this thread again .... yesterday I received a call re the stomach contents of one sperm whale that stranded on Chatham Islands, due East of Wellington (many miles offshore), and today I hear that a bull has stranded on a beach to the northwest of where I'm at. I'll soon be doing the Jonah thing again, either later this avo or early morrow (to extract the beaks from the stomach); could be worse - it could be mid summer, with core temperatures inside the whale of ~ 40°C. I feel ill already, and I haven't even picked up a blade ...
 
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Sir Dr Umm......., why don't you trundle on downunder and help ... and possibly stay a while, researching all of these beaks for a thesis?
 
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Steve O'Shea said:
Sir Dr Umm......., why don't you trundle on downunder and help ... and possibly stay a while, researching all of these beaks for a thesis?

[kicks :oshea: under the table] Steve!!! For Cthulhu's sake, ix-nay on the 'undle on down'-tray!! :goofysca:
 
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Ouch!

As there are very few images of Architeuthis sucker scars on the hides of whales I thought I'd post a few here.

I think (still not 100% sure; will know tomorrow) that we are dealing with a small female, length 12m, weight ~ 15-20 tons. Local iwi are doing something with the carcass, so I cannot access the stomach until morrow. More info soon.

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Always cool to see that. Are there diagnostic features in those scars, or do we just assume that Architeuthis caused them becasue of their size and shape?

I wish I had skin that thick. :cry:
 
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Here are a couple of pics of Steve taking the beaks out the stomach. This is in our new wet lab Yay!!!!! You have no idea of the stench, unless of course you've been in close proximity to decomposing whale.

steve-whale-stomach01.jpg




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:shock:

.... I VERY rarely use gloves (I like to feel what it is I am handling; there's a lot of information in texture); that will give you an indication of just how revolting that job was!! The 4th floor of our building evacuated pretty quickly, just from the stench of that wee sample. The smell is seriously eveeeel!

The squid beaks are stuck to that thar piece of stomach lining; I'm just picking the last few off. Great research topic .... any takers?

I've a wee 35 second video clip that I'm sending to Tony (too large to email) that will show you just what we get up to in the field (what's involved in collecting these samples). Not nice!
 
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The stomach is considerably larger than this; this is only a small fragment that I'm extracting residual beaks from.

The whale proved to be female, ~ 12m long. One of these days we'll get some sensational info online, describing the squid composition of their stomachs.
 
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It looks more like a Messie beak to me. The examples I've seen have been pitch-black and very robust looking.
 
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