GIANT SQUID at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

Giant Squid at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

More than one hundred years ago, the French writer, Jules Verne, wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, about a fantastic voyage on a submarine called the Nautilus.  As the ship cruised the oceans of the world, it met all kinds of  strange creatures.  At one point it was suddenly attacked by a group of giant squid.  The huge animals peered into the windows with eyes the size of basketballs and wrapped their long, snake-like arms around the ship.  Everyone was terrified.  The crew battled the squid, and finally escaped.

Illustration of a giant squid from 20000 Lieues Sous les Mers by Jules Verne, 1870

Jules Verne’s  story is imaginary, but the giant squid that he wrote about are real. They are the world’s biggest animals without bony skeletons.  The largest known giant squid was 57 feet long--longer than a school bus.

Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC

On a recent visit to Washington, DC, I had the chance to see a preserved giant squid up close at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. It had been caught by fishermen trawling for blue whiting in the Bay of Biscay in July 2005.  Its arms were so long I couldn’t view the whole animal with my camera.

Squid are members of the same family as octopus and live in oceans all over the world.  Like an octopus, a squid has eight arms lined with rows of suckers which are used for holding on to things.  But it also has two longer arms for feeding. When a squid locates its prey, it grabs it with its feeding arms, then kills its prey with the sharp, horny beak in its mouth. A giant squid can eat up to 500 pounds of food a day!

Giant squid live in water up to a half a mile deep and, until recently, no one had ever seen a giant squid in deep water.  In 2004, Japanese scientist Tsunemi Kubodera hung a long line with bait and a camera in a place where giant squid were known to live.  Then he waited. Suddenly, on September 30, 2004, at 9:15 a.m., a giant squid attacked the bait.  The camera clicked. This was the first time that a giant squid had been photographed in its natural home. 

Giant squid are truly one of the world’s strangest and most interesting creatures, but I’d definitely much rather meet one in a museum than out in the ocean.