Giant Squid footage on History Channel

[gonetobaja]

http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=251231


They say its over 100ft ?

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Dale, pretty pretty pretty please .... any chance of a high res image of the large squid? Not to worry about the size problem; that's to be expected.

 

[gonetobaja]

Here is the problem with the high res photo of the squid, I was hired for the dive mission as a diver, all footage from the cameras became property of History Channel at the end of the Expedition. In fact I have been under orders to stay quiet about this whole thing untill now. I do have shots from my personal camera but they were taken during the mission, at depths reachable by divers on rebreathers.

Here is a shot of the squid that carried the camera down deep for us. I was in the process of recovering the camera when the squid decided to go for the front of the nearest thing. You can see the camera still attached to the squid, the other end of the cable is in my hand. All the footage of the big squid was caught on that small camera.

 

[daviddickinson]

http://www.findinternettv.com/Video,item,1146506011.aspx

 

[tonmo]

Thanks for posting that link!

 

[OB]

Oh-My-God, what is that!? 108 ft is ridiculous, but it most certainly looks BIG, very BIG....

 

[cuttlegirl]

 

[Animal Mother]

Wow.

 

[Clem]

Huh. Cool footage.

Hard to say how big those squid are, but I think Thysanotuethis put in an appearance.

Clem

 

[OB]

Hmmmm.... I watched the video over and over, but I'm not quite sure what led you to the latter conclusion. The early squid(s) are(/is) definitely average sized Humboldt, but on the big one at the end I fail to see hooks, making a really large Humboldt less likely. I also fail to see big diamondshaped fins, however, although I sometimes think i can see tips at one stage, halfway lost in the noise.... You're right about scale being impossible to tell, but the flow of arms and speed/momentum of movement do at least suggest something fairly large, perhaps not truly gigantic, and we could even go as far as to calculate size based on amount of lux coming from the crittercam lights and the dimness of the image...

 

[daviddickinson]

I found a few more pictures on the thread below, I wonder if they have more footage of the larger squid which will be shown on the actual Monster Quest episode?

http://www.spearboard.com/showthread.php?t=53982

 

[OB]

Good call and David!

 

[gonetobaja]

Here is the direct link to the video I found.

http://www.history.com/media.do?id=monsterquest_giant_squid&action=clip

GTB

 

[Clem]

Ob,

Upon studying a decent grab, I no longer see a Diamondback. I see something painful.

 

[OB]

That's Dosidicus gigas in all it's terrifying reality.... I am seriously making an effort with regards to interpreting dimness as scale indicator, my estimate at arm length for the large mystery squid is around 1 meter, making it sizeable, within the 1,5 to 2 meter ML. It could, however, be (a lot) larger, but I don't think much smaller. I love its number 1 pair, beautifully poised in attack mode. The keels on what I take to be pair 3 are very reminiscent of Dosidicus, but I fail to see hooks, Architeuthis dux has less profound keels, but that would simply be too good, wouldn't it, Clem?

This counts amongst my favourite shots of Dosidicus in the wild.