Just a wee note; we'll post more soon (but we cannot post the article online, not yet anyway, sorry). It's ~ 10 pages long and ready for submission now. Just thought you might find part of the conclusion interesting.
Accidental self-ingestion, autophagy or cannibalism
We believe it extremely unlikely that Architeuthis would accidentally bite off and eat its entire tentacle club while feeding. No tentacle or tentacle club retained with any of more than 100 carcasses examined by the authors has manifested any sign of self-inflicted damage. Moreover, this report is the first confirmed incidence of Architeuthis remains within the digestive tract of the species, and if either accidental self ingestion or autophagy occurred, even rarely, then we believe that we would have observed remains more frequently in gut contents, or, alternatively, earlier authors would have identified them and accordingly remarked on their occurrence (although it is quite possible that the large unidentified suckers reported by Zeidler & Gowlett-Holmes (1996) are referable to Architeuthis). Therefore, although we cannot entirely discount either accidental self-ingestion or autophagy, we lean toward the possibility of ingestion in the aftermath of inter-architeuthid aggression or mating.
Aldrich (1991: 474) describes a beached Architeuthis (specimen # 15) as unique amongst those encountered by him in that it clearly showed evidence of having been engaged in battle with what apparently was another cephalopod. This he based on evidence of sucker scars ranging from 2.7 to 4 mm in diameter on some arms, in addition to the ends of incomplete arms being serrated in a manner inconsistent with that associated with beaching. Aldrich (ibid: 475) attributes this damage to combat with another architeuthid. We believe that our present contribution, wherein the large tentacular sucker rings of Architeuthis are reported from the stomach caecal contents, and that of Zeidler & Gowlett-Holmes, wherein large unidentifiable suckers were recovered from the stomach caecum, equally support Aldrich’s contention that damage through combat with other architeuthids does occur.
References
Aldrich, F.A. 1991. Some aspects of the systematics and biology of squid of the genus Architeuthis based on a study of specimens from Newfoundland waters. Bulletin of Marine Science, 49(1–2): 457–481.
Zeidler, W., & Gowlett-Holmes, K.L. 1996. A specimen of giant squid, Architeuthis sp., from south Australian waters. Records of the South Australian Museum, 29(1): 85–91.
........
Cheers
Us