Giant squid filmed for first time

there's video of it here (not sure if it will play for people outsdie Australasia): Giant squid filmed by scientists in world first | Stuff.co.nz

I assume this is new footage but at least one bit is from a live giant squid filmed a few years ago after it hooked itself on a long-line. The bit that I assume is the new footage is interesting. The squid is sort of hanging vertically, head-down, which is to be expected really but not what one imagines a giant squid to look like in the wild.
 
Thanks very much for the link Chlidonias. The video worked fine for me, so appears to be accessible outside Australasia.
 
I saw this on the news yesterday and they said it was the first ever video of giant squid. Why would they say that though given that they were filmed before and some of the very footage in the video is from an older video? Weird... Maybe it is in the wording, as the other one was caught on a fishing line.
 
Chlidonias said:
yes I think they mean the first time one has been filmed free in the wild. The other one was in 2006 (article here: Giant Squid Captured Live on Video, Then Dead on Hook - NYTimes.com) and was basically attached to a line it had grabbed onto. It was pulled on board and died. The article says another was photographed earlier in the wild (as opposed to filmed as it has been now).
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Cheers. That makes sense then. Still, it's a great milestone. Maybe they will capture a small one and put it in an aquarium next.
 
nanoboy said:
Cheers. That makes sense then. Still, it's a great milestone. Maybe they will capture a small one and put it in an aquarium next.
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Steve O'Shea is a NZ teuthologist who has caught and kept many baby giant squid. They don't survive well.
 
nanoboy said:
Well, there goes my chances of seeing an adult then.
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We should start a new business hosting and facilitating cultural sensitivity seminars. We can use our fortune to build an army of undersea exploratory robots and subs and go looking for an adult giant squid. I want to see a Dumbo octopus too. And a vampire squid.
 
DavidBrown said:
We should start a new business hosting and facilitating cultural sensitivity seminars. We can use our fortune to build an army of undersea exploratory robots and subs and go looking for an adult giant squid. I want to see a Dumbo octopus too. And a vampire squid.
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Haha. I find the term "dumbo" to be quite offensive by the way. In my town it was a nickname given to kids with big ears. I'll sign you up to my cultural sensitivity class. :p
 
Chlidonias said:
Steve O'Shea is a NZ teuthologist who has caught and kept many baby giant squid. They don't survive well.
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This is really interesting. If nobody until recently has seen live giant squid how do they confirm that the babies are actually that species? And how do they find the babies to bring them into captivity?
 
Think you Chlidonias, I was also able to view the video you provided. On our local news they only provided a still photograph.
 
DavidBrown said:
This is really interesting. If nobody until recently has seen live giant squid how do they confirm that the babies are actually that species? And how do they find the babies to bring them into captivity?
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giant squid are pretty distinctive no matter what their size, and the species is/are known from very many dead specimens so not having seen live ones before is irrelevant to identification. The babies are active in surface waters (I'm guessing due to vertical migration). Albatrosses eat a lot of squid and their stomachs are often full of the beaks of baby giant squid (the beaks being the only hard part that survives inside the stomach of course). I think I first read about that in Richard Ellis' book on giant squid and I'd always thought that it shouldn't be hard to catch baby giant squid if they are up at the surface (albatrosses can't feed far below the surface) and apparently Steve O'Shea thought the same and went and did something about it. There was a documentary made about him trying to keep them alive.
 
Now, are these scientists POSITIVE that what they caught on camera was a real live adult giant squid? Is there the possibility that this could be a Humboldt squid or a colossal squid? How do they know for sure that this is in fact a giant squid?
 
zooboyabroad said:
Now, are these scientists POSITIVE that what they caught on camera was a real live adult giant squid? Is there the possibility that this could be a Humboldt squid or a colossal squid? How do they know for sure that this is in fact a giant squid?
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those three types of squid all look quite different, and in any case the Humboldt's squid does not occur where this specimen was filmed (it is on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean). I think it's a safe bet also that those teuthologists who study giant squid can identify giant squid.

I suppose one could posit that there is an otherwise unknown species of huge squid that looks exactly like an Architeuthis but is in fact completely different, but that isn't terribly likely.
 
Chlidonias said:
I suppose one could posit that there is an otherwise unknown species of huge squid that looks exactly like an Architeuthis but is in fact completely different, but that isn't terribly likely.
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Occam's Razor applied to giant squid :eek: Shock! Horror!

Alan
 
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