DEADLY sea monsters have woken from the deep to cause carnage among some of the world’s richest fishing grounds. Millions of killer ... have even started attacking humans.
Two Mexican fishermen were recently dragged from their boats and chewed ... their bodies could not be identified even by their own families. ... the giant squid are called “diablos rojos” – red devils.
Since 2002, Humboldt giant squid, named after the 18th century German explorer ... hunting in 1,000-strong packs ... {are} believed to be able to lay 30 million eggs, each one capable of becoming a giant killing machine.
1 large loaf pan (23 x 13 x 8 cm) 1 slab pan (25 x 25 x 4 cm) 750 g white chocolate 250 ml cream Plastic ice cream container lid, cut into 2 triangles for fins
Red & blue food dye Candy necklaces (I got a massive bag for $2 at the Reject shop) Toy boat Toothpicks
The squid was caught during a research cruise funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service, according to a news release.
Piglet squid are typically found in deep water -- 320 feet or deeper from the ocean's surface. The one in the photo was found in the San Pedro Channel.
Squid and Squidability July 16, 2009 By Miriam Goldstein
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a dead famous author lacking possession of a good copyright, must be in want of some supernatural horror. Yesterday, Quirk Books announced the sequel to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. My first reaction was a giant squeal—Austen and oceanic beasts together at last! But my second reaction was considerably less enthusiastic ...
Just when you thought it was safe … giant squid terrorise Californian coast Divers spooked by tales of assaults as swarms of aggressive jumbo flying squid invade the shallows off San Diego Associated Press in San Diego Friday 17 July 2009 15.25 BST
Jumbo flying squid have invaded the shallow waters off San Diego, California, spooking scuba divers and beachgoers after washing up dead on the beaches.
The carnivorous cephalopods, which weigh up to 45kg (100lb), came up from the depths last week, with swarms of them roughing up unsuspecting divers. Some reported tentacles enveloping their masks and yanking at their cameras and gear.
Stories of close encounters with the squid have chased many divers out of the water and created a whirlwind of excitement among those torn between their personal safety and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to swim with the deep-sea giants.
The so-called Humboldt squid, named after the current in the eastern Pacific, have been known to attack humans and are nicknamed "red devils" for their rust-red colouring and mean streak. Divers wanting to observe the creatures often bait the water, use a metal viewing cage or wear chainmail to avoid being lashed by the creature's tentacles.
The squid, which is most commonly found in deep water from California to the bottom of south America, hunts in schools of up to 1,200 individuals, can swim up to 15 mph and can skim over the water to escape predators.
"I wouldn't go into the water with them for the same reason I wouldn't walk into a pride of lions on the Serengeti," said Mike Bear, a local diver. "For all I know, I'm missing the experience of a lifetime."
The squid are too deep to bother swimmers and surfers, but many experienced divers say they are staying out of the surf until the sea creatures move on.
Roger Uzun, a veteran scuba diver and amateur underwater videographer, swam with a swarm of the creatures for about 20 minutes and said they appeared more curious than aggressive. The animals taste with their tentacles, he said, and seemed to be touching him and his wet suit to determine if he was edible.
Diver recounts close encounter with squid before earthquake 1:58 PM By Dave Schwab - La Jolla Light
By at least one eyewitness account, the jumbo-size Humboldt squid rarely seen in La Jolla waters which have been turning up in large numbers recently are curious and aggressive with divers - but not threatening, at least not life-threatening.
When Cynthia Velazquez and her dive partner Roger Uzun of San Diego heard last week that large squid were being sighted, they decided to pay them a visit Friday night. That was before people spotted the sea creatures on the beach Saturday, shortly after an offshore earthquake. Some speculated the squid might have been disoriented by the quake. Armed with bright floodlights and a video camera, the pair went searching for squid about 8:30 p.m. in 30-foot-deep water off La Jolla Shores on July 10.
It didn't take long for them to find - or be found by - the object of their search.
"They were already there waiting for us," said Velazquez, a veteran diver with extensive experience locally and in Mexico's Sea of Cortez. "
At first there were about four of them, 4- to 5-feet long, and later there were probably like 10. They were very curious. They came right up to us: inches away from our faces."As the half-hour-long encounter between humans and squid continued, Velazquez said the marine animals became bolder. "
One of them tried to grab my light from my hand and take it away," she said, adding they reacted the same way with her dive partner who had the video camera. "They tried to take his strobe. They were actually grabbing it and pulling it away.
They also tried to take off his mask."Velazquez said the squid were definitely not afraid of them. 'They were just swimming around us," she added. "They tried to sneak behind us. They were following us. When I turned, they were right there next to my face."
She warned that new divers be extra careful in approaching the squid if they see them because "they may freak out with an experience like this, causing them to breathe faster and have a potential issue underwater."
It was an odd start to the morning in La Jolla. First residents were jolted out of bed at 7.34 a.m. by a 4.0 magnitude earthquake that was centered 19 miles out to sea.
Residents were jolted out of bed by an earthquake, which is not uncommon in San Diego, but what happened just minutes later was a little fishy.
“I was having coffee up on the balcony and I felt it shaking,” Kate Lutkemeier said.
“I heard my doors and windows rattling, thinking that somebody was trying to get in my front door actually,” La Jolla resident Mary Skeen said.
“We just got here about 15 minutes ago and Lilly, what did you see on the beach?” John Feher asked his little daughter. “Squid, squid, squid, squid, squid.” she replied.
Dozens of dazed Humboldt squid that were about three to four feet long and weighed close to 40 pounds were flapping around on La Jolla Shores beach.
“It’s like their equilibrium is all messed up and they don’t know what they’re doing and they can’t back out there,” Bill Baumann said. “It was like they got -- I don’t know -- all shook up.”
It didn’t take long for the seagulls to swoop in and start feeding on the squid, so beachgoers ran to the rescue and tried frantically to save them by throwing them back in the water. That proved to be a difficult task for several reasons -- they were extremely heavy, very slippery, and when the good Samaritans did manage to get them back them in water, the squid didn’t know where to go and kept washing back up.
“Some people were saying it was the earthquake this morning that caused them to get disoriented but who knows? Feher said.
“Why are they here? Why are the squid here? I can’t honestly tell you,” Sgt. Rains said. “I don’t if it’s tied or not to the earthquake.”
“The Humboldt squid can be very big and very powerful and they may be dangerous,” Sgt. Rains said. “It’s just something I wouldn’t mess with until you’re sure that it’s dead. They’ve got a lot of suckers and claws and a parrot like beak and they can inflict some damage.”
A spokesman for Scripps Institution of Oceanography said at this point they do not see a connection between the squid and the earthquake, but plan to look into it. Dozens of squid washing up at the same time is unusual but it has happened before, according to Sgt. Rains. But Mary Skeen said it is a first for her.
“I have never seen squid in the 42 years that I’ve lived here on the shores in La Jolla,” she said.
Ivan Amato, Newscripts, Chemical and Engineering News, March 30, 2009, p.64
At the HPLblog we bring cutting edge Real-Life Cthulhu science as it happens. Chrispy is of the opinion that while Cthulhu may be a creature of exotic dark energy, upon his arrival to and just before he fell to sleep under the Earth’s surface millions of years ago, he looked about and saw and admired the elegant intelligent cephalopod, and immediately adopted that form. Therefore the more we know of these mysterious creatures, the more we shall understand of the wisdom and madness of dread Cthulhu.
{Just} as kids love candy, … giant squid, octopods, and other deep-sea cephaopodsike to stuff … their beaks ... {but} the only thing that remains … in whale’s stomachs are chitinized beaks. A French research team … with a cache of beaks from nearly 20 cephalod species retrieved from the stomachs of htree sperm whale s that had become stranded in the Bay of Biscay in 2001. The scientists from the National Center for Scientific Research and the Universit of La Rochelle used a high-end mass spectrometer {a device that blasts apart molecules, scans them, and compares the residue to known molecular and ionic structures thus determining what unknown elements are present in a compound}. The measured 13C and 15N indicators of {whether the food in their beaks was of deep sea or surface origin}.
In a recent Biology Letters the scientists indicated that the squids and octopods {had been eating} in deep oceanic beds, not along the continental shelf. The species spanned 1.5 trophic levels similar to dolphins {and whales}. The giant squid, Taningia dinae, is an aggressive top {of the food chain} predator. The giant octopus, Haliphron atlanticus, dwells higher in the water column, and is eaten more often.
Oh my! You don't have to go to Europa or Beta Reticuli to see aliens.
The undulating, winglike flaps that gave Magnapinna ("big fin") its name--as well as the distinctive tentacles, extended at right angles and trailing like fishing lines. Whereas giant squid and other cephalopods have eight short arms and two long tentacles, Magnapinna have ten appendages that all appear to be the same length.
Just imagine if you were on Earth when Cthulhu first appeared, looked about, and decided that the Architeuthis was the model for it's new form. Tthen, just before the Octopus of Dark Energy slept for an aeon, it came ... for ... YOU!
Aieeee!
The news story: A Shell Oil Compnay camera picked up this image - A mile and a half (two and a half kilometers) underwater - surprise: an alien-like, long-armed, and—strangest of all—"elbowed" Magnapinna squid. Now, does anyone else ``shudder`` what the Oil Companies really want a Cthulhuesque creature for?
Chemical and Engineering News (11 August 2008) reports that curators at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History have selected 3M's Novec 7100 engineering fluid to preserve two giant squids now held at Saint Ocean Hall. They're set to be displayed in September 2008.
The fluid may be exotic enough to be familiar to an interstellar alien. It's hydrofluoroether which will envelop the squids without permeating their tissues. (It's non-fammable, has low toxicity, and virtually no global warming potential.
Perhaps the great beasts are spawn of Cthulhu and are merely sleeping ... awaiting ... the great and glorious day of ... Aieeee!
Dave Goudsward found these octopus jewlery pieces made of real octopus. (I'd guess made by the lost wax process). And don't forget to checkout and buy Dave's books. (click here). - - And join the Google Group for more information that doesn't always make it to the blog.
The Octopus is a symbol of Transformation and Regeneration. Because of its reputation of changing colors to match its backgrounds, the octopus is also known as the Master of Disguise. Octopuses also have the power to regenerate. If an octopus loses an arm in battle it can grow a new one. Some can even detach and arm to distract predators and then grow another! Don't mess with the octopus because they can stun or kill you with one poisonous bite. The poison is called tetrodotoxin which is the same as Fugu, the puffer fish served in Japan. So treat your Octopus with Love! (o)(o)(o) (suction sound) - OctopusME!
{These creatures are amazing. Is there any wonder Cthulhu took the image of the majestic and graceful rather than the indelicate primate homo sapien?)
By RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer Wed Apr 30, 6:07 PM ET WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Marine scientists studying the carcass of a rare colossal squid said Wednesday they had measured its eye at about 11 inches across — bigger than a dinner plate — making it the largest animal eye on Earth. One of the squid's two eyes, with a lens as big as an orange, was found intact as the scientists examined the creature while it was slowly defrosted at New Zealand's national museum, Te Papa Tongarewa. It has been preserved there since being caught in the Ross Sea off Antarctica's northern coast last year. "This is the only intact eye (of a colossal squid) that's ever been found. It's spectacular," said Auckland University of Technology squid specialist Kat Bolstad, one of a team of international scientists brought in to examine the creature. "It's the largest known eye in the animal kingdom," Bolstad told The Associated Press. The squid is the biggest specimen ever caught of the rare and mysterious deep-water species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, or colossal squid. When caught, it measured 26 feet long and weighed about 1,000 pounds, but scientists believe the species may grow as long as 46 feet. "This is the largest eye ever recorded in history and studied," said Swedish Professor Eric Warrant of the University of Lund, who specializes in vision in invertebrates. "It has a huge lens the size of an orange and captures an awful lot of light in the dark depths in which it hunts." The squids can descend to 6,500 feet and are known to be aggressive hunters. Scientists using an endoscope to examine the stomach and other organs said later Wednesday on their blog that the squid was a female. "We just found the ovaries — the specimen is a girl! The ovaries are full of several thousands of eggs!" the entry said. Bolstad earlier said that females are believed to grow larger than the male.
