[News]: Giant squid caught off Italian coast - United Press International

[octobot]

EDIT: This thread has been locked. Please comment on this story here. Note that this is not a proper "giant squid" (Architeuthis), but rather a Dimond Squid (Thysanoteuthis rhombus), about to lay eggs. Thanks to TONMO.com member Taddea Tentakel for providing this detail!

Giant squid caught off Italian coast
[SIZE=-1]United Press International - 14 hours ago[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]23 (UPI) -- The first giant squid ever captured intact in Italian waters has researchers buzzing about finally being able to learn more about the rare ...[/SIZE]



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[Steve O'Shea]

"The squid, which was caught in a deep sea net by fisherman off the island of Elba, is one and a half meters long and weighs almost 40 pounds.

"Squids travel close to the surface, so it is quite unusual that it was brought up in a deep sea net," explained Dr. Paolo Sartor of Livorno's Marine Biology Lab, which now has custody of the mollusk.

"This specimen is in excellent condition and it will be able to tell us a lot about the species," Sartor added.

Researchers said they believe the female squid was caught while laying its eggs."

My word!

First of all, it is not unusual to capture these animals at depth (this is where they most frequently are found); second, it very small for an Architeuthis, and doesn't weigh that much either (this does make this specimen extremely valuable to science, if correctly identified, because such small specimens are quite rare; it is hard to know whether they refer to ML or TL); but the most unusual thing about this record, that they do attribute to Architeuthis, is the suggestion that it was laying eggs.

It will be interesting to learn more about this specimen!

 

[monty]

Looks like it wasn't Architeuthis... see Comment on: "Giant Squid caught off Italian coast"

Also, see that about a comment about regular users not being able to comment on this thread; are only staff allowed to comment on the news feeds or something?