How do you picture something you’ve never seen? Maybe you think of a giant squid as some kind of big, inky beast from movies.
First off, this thing doesn’t hang around anywhere near light, like deep waters of the Southern Ocean. It also lives in water that’s super cold with extremely high pressure. That makes it tough on most living things.
The Truth About Giant Squid
Get a sense of how big it really is… Based off actual biology, not myth. This creature stand out among all other deep-sea species because it’s so big. Popular culture tends to give importance to length, but weight is what tell you about strength. At nearly half a tonne, the weight of one confirmed specimen make it the world’s heaviest invertebrate. That’s a lot of muscle packed into a tight little package, designed to ambush rather then endure. Its barrel-shaped mantle house its efficient processing tools for large meals. This is no delicate creature we’re gazing upon, it’s an armored beast floating in the depths.
Let’s put those numbers in context with things you might know: How big is it? If you add its arm lengths on end, it can be longer than a regular-sized car. Its eyes are also large; up to 30 cm in diameter, perhaps the biggest of any living animal. Why? Light doesn’t travel far underwater. By having huge eyes, it collects all the bioluminescence it can find. So if there are fish nearby, the squid can detects them from a great distance away. It sees better at night than you do during the day.
Confusion reigns over the distinction between giant squids and their cousins, the colossal squid. Some people think the one with longer body must be larger or deadlier. That’s wrong. While the giant squid will attack from afar with its long tentacles, the colossal squid likes a bit of up-close-and-personal action. Its short arms rotates three hundred sixty degrees on swiveling hooks. They don’t act like still grippers; rather, they grab hold of flesh and rip free when creature goes about its business. It is adapted for feasting on big bony fish (like the Patagonian toothfish), which means it needs something to do all that ripping with. It’s built for close quarters combat.
Then there’s habitat. They survive in waters that hover just above freezing. The water temperature is barely above freezing and the depth have great pressure, think about hundreds of tons per square inch. Ammonium chloride in their tissue help them float neutrally. It’s a chemical alternative to the swim bladder used by fish. Because they float, they don’t have to waste energy swimming. They are ambush predators and will sit and wait for unsuspecting prey to get within reach, then attack with pinpoint accuracy. The strategy gap shows when you compare them side-by-side in the grid. Other squids use camouflage or speed to get away. The colossal squid uses its senses and sheer brute force. It has biggest beak of all squid-kind and can lop off spinal cords. It’s an apex predator in a sunless world.
And although we have only found beaks and scars from colossal squid inside other creatures’ stomachs (like those of the sperm whale), the sperm whale is one of the few animals brave enough to hunt it down at those depths.
That’s what we learn from this creature: This thing has nothing to do with emptiness. It has nothing to do with vacancy. When you understand this animal, you’ll see the ocean different; as a place of life, a habitat of extremes, an ecosystem. And no matter what we mean by big, evolution continues to push things beyond our limits.
Consider: That thing lives down there. Down there, they has eyes the size of dinner plates and hooks that turn like knives. And they’ve been waiting a very long time in the dark, waiting for you.