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- Nov 20, 2002
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I was going to post this on the Humboldt thread initiated by the Sea Wolves, but wasn't sure if the TV feature they were filming was the one I recently saw.
That being said:
Earlier this evening I watched an episode of MONSTERQUEST which featured an expedition to the Sea of Cortez to check out rumors of a "Giant Humboldt Squid" in its depths. Yes, I know that your garden-variety Dosidicus gigas is sometimes referred to as a "Giant Humboldt Squid", but that's not what they were looking for. Nor were they seeking an Archi or a Messie. The object of their search was an apocryphal member of the species Dosidicus gigas that had grown to gargantuan proportions.
Members of the expedition (whose names I don't recall, sorry) managed to capture a moderate-sized Humboldt and attach a "squidcam" to one of its fins, hoping that on a deep dive it would manage to catch a video of the mythic "Dosidicus humongous".
Well, for once, a MONSTERQUEST monster quest actually bore fruit.... and more than expected. When the beastie with the squidcam had reached the very end of the camera's tether, it (the squid) began to flash red-white-red-white, apparently signaling danger or distress. Then something unbelievable happened: A truly enormous squid approached the little guy, not attacking it but instead apparently reaching out and examining the camera attached to its fin.
Roger Hanlon was given the opportunity to view the resulting video, and while he couldn't identify the curious giant's species precisely, he said it was definitely "something very big".
The video was then shown to an expert in video forensics (again, sorry, I don't recall his name), and he did some calculations to extrapolate the mega-ceph's size from the apparent distance between its beak and its eye.
What he came up with was truly startling: He stated that if the critter was indeed a super-sized Dosidicus gigas, then the proportional measurements in the video would indicate a length of approximately 60 ft. But then it got even weirder: He went on to say that since the relative placement of eyes vs. beak in an Archi were different from that of a Humboldt, then if what they were looking at was an Archi its length would be about 108 ft. -- as long as a Blue Whale!!!
This really blew my mind. Anyone here familiar with that particular episode? If so, how accurate do those deductions sound? The video was amazing, and I would SO love to hear that there really is a 108 ft. Archi in the Sea of Cortez, but I know that such TV shows tend to sensationalize data, especially when it comes to "the largest", "the smallest", "the strangest", etc.
More information, please!
Your very impressed (or perhaps impressionable) benthic buddy,
Tani
That being said:
Earlier this evening I watched an episode of MONSTERQUEST which featured an expedition to the Sea of Cortez to check out rumors of a "Giant Humboldt Squid" in its depths. Yes, I know that your garden-variety Dosidicus gigas is sometimes referred to as a "Giant Humboldt Squid", but that's not what they were looking for. Nor were they seeking an Archi or a Messie. The object of their search was an apocryphal member of the species Dosidicus gigas that had grown to gargantuan proportions.
Members of the expedition (whose names I don't recall, sorry) managed to capture a moderate-sized Humboldt and attach a "squidcam" to one of its fins, hoping that on a deep dive it would manage to catch a video of the mythic "Dosidicus humongous".
Well, for once, a MONSTERQUEST monster quest actually bore fruit.... and more than expected. When the beastie with the squidcam had reached the very end of the camera's tether, it (the squid) began to flash red-white-red-white, apparently signaling danger or distress. Then something unbelievable happened: A truly enormous squid approached the little guy, not attacking it but instead apparently reaching out and examining the camera attached to its fin.
Roger Hanlon was given the opportunity to view the resulting video, and while he couldn't identify the curious giant's species precisely, he said it was definitely "something very big".
The video was then shown to an expert in video forensics (again, sorry, I don't recall his name), and he did some calculations to extrapolate the mega-ceph's size from the apparent distance between its beak and its eye.
What he came up with was truly startling: He stated that if the critter was indeed a super-sized Dosidicus gigas, then the proportional measurements in the video would indicate a length of approximately 60 ft. But then it got even weirder: He went on to say that since the relative placement of eyes vs. beak in an Archi were different from that of a Humboldt, then if what they were looking at was an Archi its length would be about 108 ft. -- as long as a Blue Whale!!!
This really blew my mind. Anyone here familiar with that particular episode? If so, how accurate do those deductions sound? The video was amazing, and I would SO love to hear that there really is a 108 ft. Archi in the Sea of Cortez, but I know that such TV shows tend to sensationalize data, especially when it comes to "the largest", "the smallest", "the strangest", etc.
More information, please!
Your very impressed (or perhaps impressionable) benthic buddy,
Tani