A quick wave of the tentacles

[CapnNemo]

Hello Everyone,
My name is David, I'm fascinated by Cephalopods. I just want to say Hi, thanks for such an amazing site, and hey, I'm going to see the new Giant Squid at London's Museum of Natural History. It's a museum members only event in October (as the Squid, 'Archie' (of course) won't be ready for public view for a while). I just booked my place at the talk today.
I run a little occasional email newsletter which goes out to mainly work colleagues updating people on Giant (and Golossal) Squid sightings and news. Haven't really had much GS news recently. The last thing I had was The Natural History Museum taking delivery of Archie a couple of months ago. The world's media appears to have gone very quiet on Giant Squid activity.

Anyway, Hi everyone, nice to meet you.

 

[tonmo]

Hello and welcome aboard! This community has always needed a "CapnNemo"

 

[Melissa]

Welcome, Cap'n!

Please share your log entry on the museum's squid-fest!

Melissa

 

[Nancy]

Hi and welcome to TONMO.com!

We'd all like to hear about your visit with Archie!

Nancy

 

[Phil]

Hi David,

Welcome to TONMO. That's interesting news indeed about the Architeuthis specimen. I went up behind the scenes last January and saw a few Archi specimens in jars, but they were old, dismembered and degraded. I do hope that eventually we will all get to see the new Archi, especially as it sounds as if it is intact.

Do you have any info on the size and where and when it was caught? As far as I know you are the first to report this news here.

All the best,

Phil

 

[CapnNemo]

Details of Archie

Hi Phil

I found the story when trawling the papers for Giant Squid News, It was in the May 26th 2005 issue of the Guardian,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,,1491812,00.html

In the actual article it had a close up of the suckers. According to the paper it was caught in 2004 by a trawler off the Falkland Islands.

What's interesting is that according to the paper...

"Fortunately for the scientists at the museum, the squid is one of the most perfect specimens that has ever been found - it looks as though it was healthy when it died and is pretty much complete".

I don't know how true that is, the photo accompanying the article had only a close up so I couldn't judge. For people who are members of the Natural History Museum (it costs about GBP 42.00 to be a member for a year) there are two talks and viewings on the 14th October. These haven't been advertised to members yet. But I put 'Giant Squid' into the search engine on the Museum site as I've been regularly checking for updates, and the other day this popped up.

"A Giant's Tale: Up from the Deep

Discover the story of 'Archie'. How did he come to be at the Museum and what has happened to him since?. ... Centre tour guide Stephen Roberts and Invertebrates Curator Jon Ablett present the Museum's newest and largest specimen at 8.62 metres long - the giant squid. Discover 'Archie's' story including how he came to be at the Museum and how we are preserving and preparing him for display".

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/events/detail.jsp?key=2706

The link above appears below the entry, but doesn't work at the time of typing, according to the members office they are still constructing the page, but they are taking bookings for the tour. I'm really looking forward to it.

 

[corw314]

Carol

 

[Phil]

Thanks very much for that David.

I've found the original report of the capture from MercoPress for you. I'm sure this was reported here at the time but I can't seem to find the thread right now.

Click here

Maybe I should join the NHM now?

Ta,

Phil

 

[Scouse]

sounds like im about to become a member then........

 

[Jean]

J

 

[Steve O'Shea]

A warm indeed.
Steve