New Zealand scientists at Te Papa museum dissected an almost 800-pound colossal squid on Sept. 16. This was the second of these giants ever to be found intact. Both were dragged out of the Ross Sea, off the freezing coast of Antarctica.
Colossal squid, with their eight arms and two tentacles, both covered in fearsome rotating hooks, are the largest tentacled creatures in the ocean as measured by weight. The first one ever found, in 2007, weighed in at almost 1,100 pounds.
Giant squid are frequently cited as being longer — an 1887 scientific paper claimed they measured one at 55 feet long — but it's unclear if those measurements are accurate. And with so few colossal specimens ever examined and the variations and changes in body size that occur after death, researchers say they would need to examine many more colossal squid to really understand how large they can grow.
Fishermen hauled the first intact colossal squid into the San Aspiring fishing boat on February 22, 2007, off the coast of Antarctica. At the time, they measured it at about 33 feet and just over 1000 pounds.
This monster had been eating a Patagonian toothfish on the line it was pulled in on. Like the giant squid, these cephalapods battle sperm whales deep in the ocean. The first colossal squid tentacles ever seen were pulled from the belly of whale in 1925.
Though this one is the largest colossal specimen ever found, it is a male — female squid are generally bigger.
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