Squid beaks from whale stomachs

Steve O'Shea

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Hi all. Tintenfisch and I have just returned from a talk we gave on giant squid, giant octopus and other mysterious denizens of the deep, up country a bit. Whilst at the venue someone from the NZ Department of Conservation gave us a chilli bin of squid beaks (at least a thousand beaks) recently extracted (during autopsy) from the stomach of a stranded sperm whale (of length 13m, or ~ 40 feet). Therein were several (2 at least) giant squid beaks, and at least 4 (we haven't really looked at them in detail yet to give precise counts, and they still smell seriously evil and are covered in parasitic worms) of those belonging to Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. Those of Mesonychoteuthis just leave those of Architeuthis for dead in the seriously evil stakes - they're considerably larger and CONSIDERABLY THICKER - almost capable of doing the 'cutting through cable' trick that you'll sometimes read about (with respect to Architeuthis).

In the months to come we'll try and describe a few of these beaks online for you (as a small project), as we try and reconstruct what species this whale had been eating, and where it had been eating them; it is really quite interesting stuff!! We also have the stomach contents of three pygmy sperm whales (Kogia) to examine, so the comparison might be of interest to people here.

Mesonychoteuthis is an Antarctic squid species (none is known from New Zealand waters, or at least none is represented in collections from NZ waters), so the sperm whale, stranding in subtropical waters, was likely feeding quite a bit south of New Zealand. I don't know the cause of death of the sperm whale, whether sick or disoriented, but will let you know as soon we find out.
Steve & Tintenfisch
 
Very true Jean. More than anything I'd like these beasts to occur in NZ waters ... and am constantly on the search for them. The Tangaroa (the NIWA research vessel) is currently down there right now, trawling to ~ 1100m at the very bottom of NZ; they have collected some rather interesting squid so far (including fresh-fixed fully mature Todarodes and Nototodarus spp. for Kerry's thesis - if you could relay that to her I'd appreciate it - we did not have any in the collections until now).

Water masses/eddies/gyres are strange strange things. Way down 55°S last year they pulled up a specimen of the 'strictly' tropical to subtropical diamond back squid (Thysanoteuthis rhombus) at a depth of 127m and temp 15-16°C, so even this far south we still encounter species typical of equatorial regions, and very warm waters (although this specimen is so far outside of its previously recognised distribution that I wouldn't know where to look for a possible water mass/eddy/gyre origin).

I still don't have a juvenile Mesonychoteuthis in the collections from our EEZ yet - the minute one of those babies turns up you'll hear me holler for joy. Having said that, though, it is not necessary for the entire life cycle of a species to occur in any given area (cases in point Architeuthis dux and Haliphron atlanticus), so it is possible (but unlikely) that down there ~ 1000+m, 55°S, that the colossal Mesonychoteuthis rules the domain.

The distribution spots on Tony's earlier link are almost exclusively shallow-water dwelling juveniles; the adult is extremely rare!
Cheers
O
 
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Hiya,

I'll let Kerry know that, she'll be rapt! How mature are we talking about with the Nototodarus? This is just curiousity on my part as I got very few mature animals in my samples (of course they were being jigged, inshore and in very shallow water!) I had a few stage 5 animals but most were stage 2!

Any likely to be spent? A couple of my stage 5 females were possibly spent as the histological sections of the ovaries showed no eggs or even early or late stages and the ovarian tissue was very degenerate (some damage was due to freezing of course) The digestive gland was flaccid and the rest of the tissue (eg mantle) was soft not "rubbery" like the less mature individuals. I didn't find any males like that. Having said that these possibly spent animals were not in the dreadful condition of a spent Moroteuthis This was good and bad!! Good cos I didn't have to dissect it but on the other hand there is no mistaking a spent individual in Moroteuthis :biggrin2:

Cheers

J
 
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The ship returns on the 23rd December Jean; I think Kerry is here 15-21 December, so she'll miss them herself. I'll get them dispatched to you pronto at any rate (I think 4 large fresh-fixed Nototodarus; the rest have been frozen [didn't send enough buckets on the trip :frown: ]; I have no idea of size [as in ML] or sex at this stage). Were you not finishing up......very soon like, like before Christmas ...???? Just received some nice ommastrephids from Tonga too ... though don't ask me what genus at this point in time; they 'flew' onto the deck of the ship one night (like I'd heard of flying onychoteuthids before, but ommastrephids?).

I actually had a specific request in for fresh-fixed spent/fully mature Moroteuthis ingens; not sure if I have a spent individual fixed, but certainly did get some mature ones (and 2 x M. robsoni too). They really go grotty when they're spent (ingens; I've never seen a spent robsoni), but whatever specimens I have seen have all been frozen first ... and I think that makes them doubly grotty - it'd be nice to see if they had a cranchiid type appearance when fresh-fixed (superficial similarity only).
Toodles
O
 
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I've just received a preliminary autopsy report for the sperm whale.

It had become stranded early (7am) 28 November 2002 on the southern side of Mahia Peninsula, NZ; by 5.45pm the animal had beached itself, and sadly had died.

It was a fully mature male, 13m in length, of an an estimated weight 30 tonnes. The cause of death really isn't known, although it is presumed the animal drowned when it became stuck on its side in the surf. Judging from the number of scars on its head and wear on the teeth it was an old animal, yet it appeared in good health and had few parasites and a good blubber layer.

Steve
 
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Hi All!

I had a question, but it was answered in the autopsy. I noticed the whale beached in the morning and died in the evening of drowning. Sad it could not be helped. I'm assuming because of the weight there was nothing anyone could do?

This whole conversation is sooo amazing to me! I really am enjoying all your comments.

Carol
 
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Hi Steve,

thanks for the info, I'll bug Kerry to see the beasts!! As regards my thesis, well you know what they say about the best laid plans!! The stats have turned seriously nasty and the dept is having to upgrade the stats packs to deal with them so I won't be submitting before christmas :cry: But sometime next semester when I can get my head round this multivariate stuff!!

J
 
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squid in beached sperm whale stomach

Hi all. I am pretty new to cephalopods but I find them very interesting. I am enjoying reading this subject! So much interesting information! Wow! I can hardly fathom a sperm whale having to eat 300 plus squid a day! Amazing. Is it like and elephant in that it eats most of the time and sleeps some of the time? As for the large antarctic species of squid the whale consumed, how big are they? Sorry for my ignorance on the little questions. Hope some one doesn't mind answering them.
Some one (Jean?) mentioned that the larger antartic squid may be found closer to NZ if a cool water current flows there. Is that like in the arctic where glacial meltwater sinks under the warmer ocean water and flows elsewhere?
Interesting about the blackened beaks. I wondered too, if the color was normal or caused by digestive juices. Will be interesting to find out. By the way, how big is that beak?
Am looking forward to reading more on this subject. Thanks for sharing!

Krissie
 
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Carol, unfortunately the approximate 30 tonne dead weight of this whale prevented them from doing anything. One hopes that by keeping them doused in water between tides that they will 'refloat' on the next tide; it didn't happen here.

Krissie, will try and feed you a little more information on those beaks soon, including info on sizes - however the standard way of referring to beaks by their rostral length would make the beaks sound very small indeed. Next year we'll augment that 'guide to characters/character states etc.' [added by tonmo: see link here] with some beak illustrations/photo's so you'll understand what we're talking about a little easier. (It is difficult stuff, and I have to keep referring to books myself.)

Re the Antarctic water, yes, a bit like Arctic meltwater - a direct feed/body of water of Antarctic origin (the Antarctic Circumpolar Current) flowing from the Antarctic North to New Zealand ... but where it goes afterwards I'm not sure (it hugs the southernmost side of the Campbell Plateau, southernmost New Zealand, then heads East). I'll do a spot more reading on the subject and post something a little more detailed than this soon. It is possible that Antarctic species occur at depth off southernmost NZ, but until we get down there, 55-65°S with big nets that go 1000m+ we'll not know for sure (and the seas can get pretty volatile down that neck of the woods).
Cheers
O
 
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Very cool, squid flying onto the boat!! I've read about this sorta thing happening before (maybe Mark Normans book??). It'll be very interesting to find out what spp they are! Aren't ommastrephids known as flying squid??

catch ya

J
 
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Not sure Jean - the one I thought was the 'flying squid' (or what the fishermen have referred to it down here) has always been Onychoteuthis 'banksii' (F: Onychoteuthidae). I've had a few of these delivered to me with all manner of wild and wonderful claims of flight .... thought the chaps had lost the plot when they first relayed the story to me.

....best do some more digging on the subject .... I think I'm digging myself into a hole :biggrin2:
 
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Very interesting stuff! I'm fairly new to these boards but I've really enjoyed reading this topic. By way of introduction, I'm the guy with the Architeuthis tattoo here. Anyway, back to the squid...

Not that I'd presume to be able to tell anyone here anything about squid but, according to Cephalopod Behaviour by Roger T. Hanlon and John B. Messenger, there are several species known as 'flying squid'. Here's a relevant quote from the book:

"Sometimes jetting takes a squid out of the water and there are several 'flying' squids known (e.g., oegopsids such as Onychoteuthis spp., Dosidicus gigas and some other ommastrephids); these animals may then glide tens of metres..."

(By the way, I really like the Cephalopod Behaviour book. There's quite a bit of interesting information and it's presented well enough that I can understand it despite having no formal background in biology.)


A thought occurred to me on the subject of how long beaks are retained inside the sperm whale. Assuming that the beaks are broken down rather than purged, would it seem reasonable that bigger, thicker beaks would take longer to digest than smaller ones? If that's true then perhaps the figure of 1.2 - 1.6 days for beak retention in a male would really only apply to an average sized squid beak. A thicker bigger thicker beak, like that of Mesonychoteuthis, might last considerably longer. Of course I have absolutely no idea how much longer that would be but perhaps that could explain why these beaks survived the trip up from Antarctica at less than light speed.

I am just making all of this up but, from where I sit (next to a small rubber sperm whale and giant squid in an apartment in California), it seems like a possibility.
 
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It's a good point Jared, but 99.99% of the beaks in the stomach contents are in 'excellent' condition. If they were broken down via digestion then I would imagine there would be beaks in all stages of digestion (which doesn't seem to be the case); as such, purging would appear the most likely way of beak removal.

But wait until next year when we've had the opportunity to review the latest stomach contents in more detail. I think the story will become even more interesting. I've also been assured that the stomach contents of any subsequently stranded toothed whale will be heading our way ... so I think we'll be kept rather busy and rather smelly for quite some time yet.
Cheers
O
 
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The following is an old but very interesting story with some parallels with modern whale behavour and diet. Thought I'd paste it here.

Discovery of fossilised vomit first evidence of dinosaur's diet

12.02.2002 10.07 am

A dinosaur-like animal that looked like a dolphin and swam like a fish can add another string to its bow – it was frequently as sick as a parrot.

Scientists have discovered the oldest fossilised vomit of ichthyosaurs, an ancient marine reptile that lived 160 million years ago by feeding off squid-like prey with indigestible shells.

The scientists unearthed the regurgitated stomach contents of ichthyosaurs in a clay quarry near Peterborough, north of London, which has provided the researchers with a fascinating insight into the feeding habits of these long-extinct creatures.

"We believe that this is the first time the existence of fossil vomit on a grand scale has been proven beyond reasonable doubt," said Peter Doyle, professor of geoscience from the University of Greenwich.

It seems that ichthyosaurs regularly regurgitated the harder elements of its meal, rather like an owl coughs up a pellet of indigestible bones and fur after digesting its prey.

The vomit "splat" contains the distinctive shells of belemnites, the nutritious shellfish on which the ichthyosaurs fed, which have been partly digested by the reptile's gastric juices.

"The Peterborough belemnite shells, viewed under a powerful electron microscope, have revealed acid-etching marks caused by the digestive fluids from the gut of the marine reptile," Professor Doyle said.

"This proves that the belemnites had been eaten by a predator. The fact that most of these belemnites were juveniles reinforces our view that they did not die of old age," he said.

Ichthyosaurs were to ancient reptiles what dolphins and whales are to mammals – an animal perfectly adapted to a fully marine life which evolved from a terrestrial ancestor.

Professor Doyle, who made the discovery with Jason Wood of the Open University, said the fossil vomit clears up a long-standing mystery of what happened to the shells of its belemnite diet.

"It is highly unlikely that these shells passed through the ichthyosaur's intestines and were excreted as droppings, as they would have damaged the soft tissue of the reptile's internal organs," Professor Doyle said.

"The only alternative is that the shells were vomited out, in much the same way that modern-day sperm whales regurgitate the indigestible beaks of squid they have eaten," he said.
 
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SOOOO....... Whale vomit!!!!! Makes sense when you compare to owls which vomit the pellet.

Although must say, I wouldn't want to be in the path!!!!!:mrgreen:


Carol
 
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:smile: You wouldn't really want to invite one of them home for dinner would you. It could be worse - they could be vegetarian and eat tonnes of diced carrot and sweetcorn.
 
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