Giant Squid Appears in Australia
Pastor Dale Morgan
Giant Squid Appears in Australia*
Wednesday July 11, 2007 12:31 PM
HOBART, Australia (AP) - A squid as long as a bus and weighing 550
pounds washed up on an Australian beach, officials said Wednesday.
``It is a whopper,'' said Genefor Walker-Smith, a zoologist who studies
invertebrates at the Tasmanian Museum.
Giant squid live in waters off southern Australia and New Zealand -
where a half-ton colossus, believed to be the world's largest, was
caught in February. They attract the sperm whales that feed on them.
The dead squid, measuring 3 feet across at its widest point and 26 feet
from the tip of its body to the end of its tentacles, was found early
Wednesday by a beachcomber at Ocean Beach on the island state of
Tasmania's west coast, the museum said.
The squid was expected to be taken to the museum, where DNA and other
scientific tests would be carried out before it is preserved and
possibly put on public display.
For anyone thinking of a calamari feast, Walker-Smith said giant squid
contain high levels of ammonia in their bodies as a buoyancy aid.
``It would not taste very nice at all,'' she said.
New Zealand fishermen netted a 1,100-pound, 33-foot-long squid in the
Southern Ocean in February. It is widely believed to be the largest
specimen of the rare and mysterious deep-water species Mesonychoteuthis
hamiltoni, or colossal squid, ever caught.
Experts believe the creatures, which have long been one of the most
mysterious denizens of the deep ocean, may grow even bigger - up to
46-feet long.