Giant sea creature goes on display
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Wednesday March 1, 2006
The Guardian
It is one of the most mysterious animals on the planet - no one knows how it moves, where it lives, what it eats or how it reproduces. And now members of the public can see one for themselves.
Yesterday the most complete giant squid ever found was put on display at the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre in London.
Reports of giant squid date back to the 1530s, when sailors mistook them for mermen or sea serpents. Last September Japanese scientists filmed a giant squid in the wild for the first time.
It has eight thick arms and two longer tentacles that stretch six metres (20ft) ahead, lined with suckers for ensnaring prey. A vicious beak, used to quickly tear apart its food, lies at one end of its dirty-white body and a huge dark eye - 25cm (10in) across and the largest of any animal - stares out blankly. Counting its body, the squid is easily nine metres long - not the largest ever caught but certainly the most complete.
The creatures are exceptionally rare: a handful are found every year, half-digested in the stomachs of sperm whales or dead or dying near the surface of the oceans they live in. The museum's squid was caught off the Falkland Islands by fishermen in 2004 and had remained in deep freeze until last May, when scientists began preserving it.
The creature will be displayed in a glass box containing almost 4,000 litres of salt water and the preserving fluid formalin. It might look like a Damien Hirst sculpture but the museum's preservation team had a more complex brief: it had to be displayed well but also remain accessible to scientists for study. They want to use the animal to glean valuable information on the species.
Visitors will be able to see it on tours of the museum's collection of 22m zoological specimens held in alcohol.
guardian.co.uk
Alok Jha, science correspondent
Wednesday March 1, 2006
The Guardian
It is one of the most mysterious animals on the planet - no one knows how it moves, where it lives, what it eats or how it reproduces. And now members of the public can see one for themselves.
Yesterday the most complete giant squid ever found was put on display at the Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre in London.
Reports of giant squid date back to the 1530s, when sailors mistook them for mermen or sea serpents. Last September Japanese scientists filmed a giant squid in the wild for the first time.
It has eight thick arms and two longer tentacles that stretch six metres (20ft) ahead, lined with suckers for ensnaring prey. A vicious beak, used to quickly tear apart its food, lies at one end of its dirty-white body and a huge dark eye - 25cm (10in) across and the largest of any animal - stares out blankly. Counting its body, the squid is easily nine metres long - not the largest ever caught but certainly the most complete.
The creatures are exceptionally rare: a handful are found every year, half-digested in the stomachs of sperm whales or dead or dying near the surface of the oceans they live in. The museum's squid was caught off the Falkland Islands by fishermen in 2004 and had remained in deep freeze until last May, when scientists began preserving it.
The creature will be displayed in a glass box containing almost 4,000 litres of salt water and the preserving fluid formalin. It might look like a Damien Hirst sculpture but the museum's preservation team had a more complex brief: it had to be displayed well but also remain accessible to scientists for study. They want to use the animal to glean valuable information on the species.
Visitors will be able to see it on tours of the museum's collection of 22m zoological specimens held in alcohol.
guardian.co.uk