Steve swamped and offline until further notice, sorry

.... once again we're swamped, so there'll be little of either of us around for a week or so. Things to do, places to be, squid to frighten ........ gotta go
 
Things are very quite on the science sites, but it's just about impossible to check them out, contribute new information these days, other than a quick glance. Life and contribution will kind-of return to normal 17 March, unless of course we catch the larval Architeuthis again.

Will get picks of the ~ 67-day-old Sepioteuthis squid online shortly (as soon as the camera returns ... it's gone AWOL); moratlity remains zero (excluding 1 cannibalism strike earlier this week), and the squid are moving on to considerably larger marine prey. The Architeuthis expedition dates are 27 Feb through 7 March (you'll not hear from me throughout this period), followed by a series of lectures to the 16th (and you'll probably not hear from me between these dates either). Kat should be lurking around somewhere.

Sorry for the silence
Steve
 
I'm really sorry about this, but I am pretty much restricted to short exchanges between now (the 8th) and the 19th of March (NZT). Although I'll be about, and can respond to any request for info that comes through, I would imagine both of the R & D and P & B forums will be rather quiet as I'll be contributing nothing novel in this time period.

There are so many things happening right now that I'm finding it a tad difficult to keep up to date with things, so a pm to me to draw something to my attention is probably the best way to get a hold of me. There are plenty of exciting things happening in other forums right now, so I needn't worry too much .....

Oh to have the time and experience/knowledge to comment (other than a :shock: ) on some of the fantastic fossils being posted right now!!!!

Oh, to win lotto!
 
On the trail of the Giant Squid

Hi Steve,

Hopefully, this message will reach you (I am not sending you pm since you are apparently busy till Mar 19). I have just posted a message for you in ceph care forum. Since I am not sure whether it will catch you attention at all, I shall post a copy here:

"Hi Steve, I am not sure whether you are back or not or you're simply busy. I have posted another message (dated Mar 9, right after you posted your last message in this column).

I have been watching 'On the trail on the Giant Squid' on Discovery Channel. While I enjoyed it immensely, I was wondering when the documentary was made and also, about the progress or improvements (in terms of the techniques of collection, transportation and keeping baby Architeuthis alive) made since then.

I paid particular attention to the way the baby Architeuthis was handled after the tow. This includes sorting, screening and identifying the baby Giant Squid (in presumably small glass jars), subsequent observation and filming (in the plexiglas container) and eventually, the transfer of the baby Architeuthis into the specially designed circular temporary holding tank. I have also noted the behaviour of the baby Architeuthis in the plexiglas container.

Regretably, based on my experience in collecting, handling, transportation and keeping delicate marine animals alive, I have predicted the death of most, if not all, of the baby Architeuthis on arrival at port before I saw what happened at the end of the documentary.

I wish you have better luck since then and I would really like to talk to you more about the handling and care of the baby Architeuthis. "


By the way, I am also quite interested in the sort-of dwarf 'Aureoteuthis'? (not sure about the spelling) squid that you collected in one of those trips. I imagine they will be a lot easier to keep alive than baby Architeuthis. Did you managed to keep them alive in the end and if yes, for how long?

Ta
 
Re: On the trail of the Giant Squid

Cyrus said:
Hi Steve,

Regretably, based on my experience in collecting, handling, transportation and keeping delicate marine animals alive, I have predicted the death of most, if not all, of the baby Architeuthis on arrival at port before I saw what happened at the end of the documentary.
Ta

Hi Cyrus; thanks for the note. We've come a long way since then, much of it posted throughout the site. I really can't sit down right now and write all that's happened subsequent to this, though an article on something like this is certainly in order in the future (when I've had some time to breathe).

Perhaps you'd like to share with us some of your experience(s) and tell me how better the operation could have been conducted.

One thing I will add is that the nets we used to collect the squid were ideal for this purpose. No other kind of net could collect animals in the condition of the attached photographs. What you saw on screen were some of the more dramatic shots of the catcher bucket being emptied into the trough; NOT ALL retrievals (x ~ 130) of the gear were so conducted (and it certainly did depend on the sea swell at the time). Doco's are all about action, rather than gentle this, that and the other; unfortunately the action shots were not always the 'typical' shots.

See attached pics and see if you can spot ANY damage. Decide for yourself whether the equipment was as good as I say it was. The difficulties with keeping the animals alive were related to diet, tank shape and tank-construction materials.

I look forward to hearing from you; perhaps you'd like to discuss this ona separate thread altogether (not really appropriate in this thread).
Kindest
Me

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.... and there are many more, hundreds of pics in fact, that will all, eventually, find their way on to Tonmo (when I get time and can write a wee story about each).

Damage was the exception, not the norm. The RMT25 net, non-knotted 6mm mesh, with catcher bucket, towed for ~ 5-15 minutes duration, when the moon neared full and the euphasiid layer was depressed in the ocean (so that we weren't trawling through a 200m-deep column of krill, damaging the specimens), caught perfect-condition specimens of almost all species. Damage was experienced on those nights aroudn new moon, when the krill layer could have extended from the very surface to depths of 200 metres or more. Now that really was a pain! We simply couldn't trawl, and even a 5-minute tow with the net resulted in a 20kg bag full of krill.

The problem was not with collection or handling immediately thereafter, but with the culture and photography environments.

I do look forward to comments from you.
Kindest
Me
 
Hi Steve,

Thanks for all that, in particular, those amazing photos. Although I don't know when the doco was made, I thought it must have been made quite a while ago. Obviously, you must have made sunstantial progress since then.

I have certainly noticed the modifications in the trawling gears and operation procedures that was employed in the later part of the doco (the RMT25 net, the design of the catcher buckets and the shorter trawl duration) and that the specimen (including the 7 live baby Architeuthis) collected were in much better physical conditions.

You pointed out that the problem was not with collection or handling immediately thereafter but with culture and photography environments and that the difficulties with keeping the animals alive were related to diet, tank shape and tank-construction materials. When you have the time, we can dicuss this in another thread. I am really looking forward to that.

Did you manage to collect more baby Architeuthis after those trips and rear them in captivity? if yes for how long and to what size? That will be really awesome.


Ta
 
Cyrus, i might be wrong but i think that this is the same board that was up when Steve first started writing for TONMO.com... if that is the case then you may be able to trawl (sorry) through old posts to find relevant posts about the tanks etc as it got discussed in quite some detail... There is a chance that it was on an older board but I'll have a look too :smile:
 
There's not going to be a lot of me around through to 23 October - things are rather busy at present (I'm not going anywhere, but have 3 docos to get out of the way, and 3 squid to preserve). I'll check out things when I can, but will probably be limited to updates on the SQUIDCAM front.
Me
 
All for a good cause, Steve! I hope we eventually get to see some of these documentaries, even way over here in the States.

Nancy
 

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