[News]: Very Large Colossal Squid Caught

[Toren]

That was my initial thought. A team of school kids armed with hair dryers.

The Meso defrosting problem reminds me of the woolly mammoth defrosting problem: what to do with a 23-ton block of permafrost with preserved mammoth inside? They used hairdryers and worked inside an ice cave. Attached is a PDF which describes the process. Clem

 

[Steve O'Shea]

nothing like a biological desert to promote that 'clean green' image...

I trust that someone has relayed this analogy to them? It's a good one! Perhaps we could put the squid in the stream and let it defrost that way, and see whether that knocks out the didymo?

 

[OB]

Why not expose the thawing carcass to "a hot august night", nothing would survive that

 

[Cairnos]

nothing like a biological desert to promote that 'clean green' image...

Well it would be clean, but more blue than green.

Were they expecting didymo to be more sensitive to copper sulphate than all the other stuff in the streams or something?

 

[octobot]

[News]: Colossal Squid May Be Headed for Oven - The Spokesman Review

Colossal Squid May Be Headed for Oven
[SIZE=-1]The Spokesman Review, WA - Mar 21, 2007[/SIZE]
[SIZE=-1]Emergency crews used a backhoe to release a construction worker who was trapped beneath a concrete block Wednesday in People's Park. ...[/SIZE]


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[Jon]

Hi all,

I have been meaning to register with this site for a long time but never got round to it (although I tend to have a browse every day or so).

Anyway I am the curator of Cephs at the Natural History Museum (London) and when we defrosted our Architeuthis specimen we ran the mantle under cold water and then packed the arms/tentacles with plastic tubing filled with ice. This took about 3 days but as we kept any defrosted parts cold (rather than frozen) it didn't begin to rot and we were really pleased with the results (it is actually on display at the museum here in London).

Anyway - hello all again and I'm glad I've finally registered.
Jon

 

[Clem]

Jon,

Was that the Falklands specimen? Good to have you aboard!

Cheers,
Clem

 

[Jon]

Hi Clem,

Yes it was the falklands specimen (see here for more information - [http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2006/feb/news_5255.html)

Jon

 

[OB]

Jonathan, if I'm not mistaken you also received last year's Mesonychoteuthis brachial crown, right?

 

[Jon]

Hi ob,

Yes we recieved last years Mesonychoteuthis. We have the head, arms and tentacles. The buccal crown and beak were removed (we have the buccal crown but the beak is in the US at the moment for study). The mantle was never recovered and broke off from the specimen as it was hauled aboard the boat.

The Mesonychoteuthis was the one caught in South Georgian waters (http://www.sgisland.org/pages/main/news23.htm)

We are hoping to get the specimen on display in the coming year.

J

 

[OB]

Great! We have had some discussion here on eye morphology in M. hamiltoni, does the head of your specimen give any clue to that?

Edit: This is it, if I'm not mistaken; is the blueish oval patch to the top right corner a deflated eye, by any chance?

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Well it would be clean, but more blue than green.

Were they expecting didymo to be more sensitive to copper sulphate than all the other stuff in the streams or something?

Here goes Cairnos. Doesn't look like they'll do it again ... although the official report is not out yet.

Jon! I think you'll find an announcement from Te Papa in the next few days as to the most-likely procedure for defrosting the squid.

 

[Sordes]

I have a very stupid question: If the carcasses of large squids are examined, is this made only on dissection-tables, or are they also sometimes placed into a container of water, where they would probably look more lifelike, because they are lesser affected by gravity there. I ask this because the appearance of squids on the air has often not much resemblance to those they have in water. Especially in very big specimens like the subadult Mesonychoteuthis some time ago, they look more like a shapeless bag of flesh, when lying on the ground, and we still don´t know how they look exactly when they are floating in the water (or is there already a still not publicized underwater shot of a living Mesonychoteuthis which we will not see untill next year or so?

 

[CapnNemo]

Hi all,

I have been meaning to register with this site for a long time but never got round to it (although I tend to have a browse every day or so).

Anyway I am the curator of Cephs at the Natural History Museum (London) and when we defrosted our Architeuthis specimen we ran the mantle under cold water and then packed the arms/tentacles with plastic tubing filled with ice. This took about 3 days but as we kept any defrosted parts cold (rather than frozen) it didn't begin to rot and we were really pleased with the results (it is actually on display at the museum here in London).

Anyway - hello all again and I'm glad I've finally registered.
Jon

welcome Jon, ooh hang on...



... got to do these things properly, it was I who was emailing you asking about the Colossal earlier in the year having been on the Giant of the Deep members tour of the Architeuthis. You recommended that the squidviewers on the tour visit TONMO to get the best information on Giant and Colossal Squid. Fantastic that you've registered, the more scientists with Big Ceph experience the better. We have got a bit of a colossal squid eye fixation here so any info would be very eagerly received!

Re: Sordes question on floating squid, the Architeuthis in the London Museum of Natural History is lying at the bottom of the tank, this is not actually in water (I think it's formaldehyde) so the bouyancy may not be the same, (see attached photo I took of it) I think once they are out of the water, they are probably going to get a bit mucky when you put them back in and it probably won't look lifelike again.

Anyway, Dr Steve has the most experience with handling big squid carcasses and how they behave on the dissection table.

 

[monty]

Jon! We can always use more architeuthologists about...