First Photos of Live Giant Squid
You may not know this about me, but I’ve had an interest in the Giant Squid for a long time. Several years ago, back when I was a graduate student at OSU, I saw this fantastic documentary about the “Search for the Giant Squid.”
Here’s the thing: for a long time, scientists have surmised the existence of giant squid. Large beaks and tentacles have been found inside the stomachs of whales (sperm whales in particular I believe). And while the carcasses of giant squid wash up from time to time, there hasn’t been any actual photos/videos of them in the wild.
Though the documentary did not capture giant squid on film, there were several amazing moments in the show. Part of what the scientists did was to attach giant suction-cup-cameras to the backs of whales, in the hopes that the whales would go hunting for the squid.
In this documentary, it talked at length about all the different creatures that exist in the sea, many of which we may never have seen. There was one segment where they showed video from some Japanese deep-sea mining operation. And as the camera panned across what looked like a giant mound of coral… an eye appeared out of nowhere, and I recall yelling when I saw this. What I thought for a big land mass was, in fact, an enormous whale. In the documentary, you could hear some of the Japanese workers in the background, screaming.
And though the suction-cup-cameras didn’t capture any giant squid, they did turn up one rather amazing discovery. Whales, it turns out, sleep in a very peculiar manner: namely, inverted. They sleep with their heads facing down, tails pointed towards the sky. Seeing this video took my breath away, and it’s an image that I carry in my head to this day – all these massive creatures, just floating there in the middle of all that water.
I’m also reminded of my friend, Aimee Nezhukumatathil (whose last name I can still spell from memory, thanks to all those workshops). I remember us talking about this documentary while in school together, and if memory serves… this image of the whales sleeping made its way into one of her poems.
Read over the National Geographic Article and then check out some of the photos.
Link via Boing Boing.
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