©Skot Olsen

The artist’s own words pretty much say it best…

Saint Architeuthis is the patron saint of doomed sailors. While the origins of the saint remain unclear, it’s recent history and worship are well documented. Whalers who turned their attention to catching giant squid and sea serpents in the 19th century, began asking Saint Architeuthis for mercy whenever a hunt would go awry, which was fairly frequent. When hunting for such animals, one would sometimes be thrown over board or a boat would sink exposing the men to whatever was in the water at the time. A sailor would ask Saint Architeuthis for the quick and relatively painless death of drowning, rather than the hideous demise of being ripped apart by the beak of the squid or chewed up in the sea serpent’s hideous maw. Often, men would have visions of Saint Architeuthis who would appear before them in the form of a gigantic, yet benevolent squid wearing a bishop’s mitre and carrying tools of the squid hunter’s trade.

Still available: Limited Edition (signed and numbered run of 50) Gliclee on heavy watercolor stock; 14.5″ x 27″. $200

This was recently submitted by my friend Will, and it seems particularly timely because I just finished reading Kraken by China Miéville. Although not specifically mentioned in the book, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this painting adorns the secret sanctuary of the Church of God Kraken.

This amazing animation showing how Physeter macrocephalus uses echolocation to hunt, is from the Whales Tahora exhibit now at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The Sperm Whale starts out hunting boring old fish, but don’t worry, he meets an delicious Architeuthis by the end of the clip!

(Via rhamphotheca)

Here we have another of this year’s birthday presents, and I’ll be posting a full review eventually. China Miéville crafts staggeringly original and brilliantly twisted fantasy stories, and, so far, Kraken is continuing this trend.

The Story So Far: Billy Harrow is a curator (an expert mollusc preparator) at London’s Darwin Centre. When he discovers that the museum’s prize Architeuthis specimen has mysteriously vanished, Billy finds himself thrown into a secret world of myth and magic where a cult of squid worshipers are just one of many factions trying to own the impending apocalypse.

To close out Plush Week, here is, hands down, the coolest plush cephalopod in my collection…maybe the coolest plush cephalopod EVER MADE. Measuring over two and half feet long, Wild Republic’s Gaint Squid dominates the toy box. This awseomely anatomically accurate Architeuthis (although the tag claims it to be simply a “Squid”) was produced in 2005. I picked mine up from a vendor at Dragon*Con a few years back, but it is still available online. For example, Amazon.com.

In addition to its overall size, this toy has many other impressive details. It’s eyes are nearly two inches in diameter, it has a ventral siphon, and there is a well-defined collar separating the head from the mantle. If you part the fuzzy arms and tentacles, you will find a pointy black beak. The only thing this squid is missing are the suckers.

A week ago on Father’s Day, I said I would reveal the outcome of Kid Indie Squid Kid’s encounter with the plush Architeuthis. And the winner is…

Kid Indie Squid Kid clearly had the upper hand (or tentacle, as the case may be me) in this battle. Although he seems to have enlisted the help of a certain ursine ally.

After a long day with Daddy (and Mommy too!) at the science museum, Kid Indie Squid Kid returns to find his plush Architeuthis is running amok in his room!

Oh noes! How will this titanic stuggle end? Stay tuned to Plush Week to find out!

Giant squid, originally uploaded by Max Sparber.

Max says, “An occasional hobby of mine is converting two-dimensional illustrations into 3D graphics. These can be seen using the traditional red/cyan glasses.”

Avatar, eat your heart out!

Architeuthis "princeps" Modified from Verrill, 1879

At long last, we come to the end of my countdown of Ten Sensational Squids, a close-up look at a few of my favorite Teuthids. The top spot belongs, of course, to the rock star of the squid world, the darling of cryptozoology, and the species that got me started on this whole cephalopod obsession in the first place, the one, the only, the Giant Squid!

1. Architeuthis dux (Giant Squid)

First officially recognized by science in 1857, the Giant Squid was considered for more than a century to be the world’s largest Invertebrate (both in length and mass), a title that now appears to belong instead to the Antarctic species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the Colossal Squid. However, this claim is not universally accepted, and some researchers still ascribe to Architeuthis a maximum total length of 18 meters…nearly 60 feet! The more conservative estimate, and one that has become commonly accepted in recent years, is that female Giant Squid max out at a mantle length of 2.25 m (a little over 7 ft) with a total length of 13 m (~43 ft), which falls just short of the estimated 14 m Colossal Squid. (Male Architeuthis, at a mere 10 m, are a bit smaller than their mates.)

So, what is the source of this size disparity? It all seems to go back to a single specimen which washed ashore at Thimble Trickle Bay, Newfoundland on November 2, 1877 (unless it was Nov 8, 1879). This particular squid was reported to have had 35 foot tentacles and a mantle and head which together measured an astounding 20 feet long! This means that just the body of this monster would have exceeded the total length of most Architeuthis specimens known to modern science! For comparison, the largest Giant Squid currently on display is an 8.62 m (28.3 ft) specimen caught off the Falkland Islands in 2004. Based on current data and the fact that the elastic nature of squid tissues (particularly their feeding tentacles) makes them notoriously difficult to measure accurately, the veracity of this 130 year old report is highly suspect.

There are several other unverified reports of similarly sized Giant Squids from the later part of the Eighteenth Century, and the cryptozoological literature contains accounts of even bigger squids. Could it be possible that 60 ft (or greater) Giant Squid actually do exist, lurking undetected in the ocean depths? Of course! In fact, that would be sweet as hell. However, the facts as we know them just don’t quite support such a claim. For further reading on this, I highly recommend you check out Cameron McCormick’s (aka, The Lord Geekington) pair of excellent articles that explore this issue in more depth.

Speaking of recommended reading, The Search For the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World’s Most Elusive Sea Creature (Penguin, 1999) by Richard Ellis is still, despite being over ten years old at this point, the definitive guide to the history of humanity’s relationship with Architeuthis.

Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland specimen, circa 1981 (photo by derekkeats, from Flickr)

So now that we’ve tackled the size issue, what else to we know about the Giant Squid? They have long, narrow mantles, small ovoid fins, and huge eyes. Their arms and tentacles are lined with serrated suction cups. In life, they are a deep red color, but this is generally not retained in recovered specimens. Architeuthis is found world wide at depths of 300-1000 m (~984-3,280 ft). There may only be a single global species, A. dux, or possibly three, based on geographic distribution: A. dux (Atlantic), A. martensi (North Pacific), and A. sanctipauli (Southern). Wikipedia lists an additional five nominal species, and as many as 20 different species have been named over the years (many named from single, badly damaged specimens). They are predatory, feeding on fish and other, smaller squid, and, in turn, they themselves are preyed upon by Sperm Whales. If one assumes that Giant Squid make up a significant percentage of the whales’ diet, it would seem that are actually quite common, despite their uncanny ability to evade human detection. Because they are so seldom seen, however, little else is known about their behavior.

Melbourne Aquarium specimen, photo by Fir0002 (from Wikipedia)

Nearly all known Architeuthis specimens have been found either in the stomachs of Sperm Whales, washed up on shore, floating dead on the surface, or accidentally caught by deep-sea trawling. Sadly, none of these scenarios are kind to delicate soft tissues, and consequently, most specimens on display around the world are in pretty rough shape. The first photographs of a living adult Giant Squid were taken in 2002 on Goshiki Beach, Japan (the 13 ft individual was found at the surface and died soon after). It wouldn’t be until 2004 that a living Giant Squid was photographed in its natural habitat. Japanese researchers were able to lure a 26 ft Architeuthis to a baited line at a depth of 3,000 ft off Japan’s Ogasawara Islands. They took 500 pictures over the course of four hours, and you can see some of them at NationalGeographic.com. In 2006, the same research team filmed video of a live Giant Squid for the first time. Again using a baited line, the squid, an 11 ft female, was brought to the surface, as seen in this segment from Japanese television.

In October of last year (as reported right here on ISK), a professional underwater photographer captured the first pictures of Sperm Whales in the act of eating a Giant Squid. (You can see some of these amazing photos here.) This took place, yet again, in the waters off the Ogasawara Islands, further proving that Japan is the new center of modern Architeuthis research. Maybe one day soon someone will finally get footage of the legendary battle that is thought to take place when a hungry Sperm Whale sets his sights on an unsuspecting Giant Squid. This encounter has likely been mythologized, but it is mysteries like this, still unknown after nearly two centuries, that have helped make Architeuthis such a fixture in popular culture. Clearly, it is one of the Most Awesome Animals Ever.

Preserved Giant Squid, originally uploaded by murdocke23.

Here’s a sneak preview of the final installment of the Ten Sensational Squids countdown. Full post to follow.

Frozen giant squid, originally uploaded by Timmy Toucan.

Preserved Architeuthis dux at the Melbourne Aquarium.

“Squid T-shirt” features the two largest living invertebrates: Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni (aka the Colossal Squid) and Architeuthis dux (aka the Giant Squid). While it is true that the Colossal Squid edges out the Giant Squid in both mass and length, “Mr. McSweeney” has perhaps misrepresented this size difference just a tad.

This American Apparel shirt is $22.00 and comes in men’s and women’s sizes. Be warned, however, these sizes run small. I have a men’s large, and, despite losing about 30 lbs in the past year, it still doesn’t quite look flattering on me (which is why I didn’t post a photo of myself wearing the shirt). That being said, you should still…

Buy it now from The McSweeney’s Store!