Who's/What's the biggest??

[bobwonderbuns]

Hi All!! I am curious as to what the biggest creatures in the seas are. For years I thought that Architeuthis, the giant squid, was the largest squid around. Not so!! There is Mesonychoteuthis, the Colossal squid who is much bigger! Soooo, the question is, are there any squids/octos/anything else living in the deep seas that are bigger than ole messie? If so, what are they? Any thoughts??

 

[Armstrong]

I don't know, so far...scientists have only found what they found. Im guessing new discoveries are still being looked into deeper. But the largest creature in the seas is definately the whale growing over 200 ft. and weighing many tons.

A giant squid only equals a whale's length if it ever grew around 200 ft. which hasen't ever been recorded yet. The largest squid found was about 60 ft. long if im not correct and weighed about 2-3 tons.

Octopuses are also being checked into. The largest ever found was about 32 ft. arm-span...making each arm about 16 ft. long and weighed about 600 pounds. However, some past discoveries debate that some octopuses have been found with sizes equal to whales.

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Soooo, the question is, are there any squids/octos/anything else living in the deep seas that are bigger than ole messie? If so, what are they? Any thoughts??

Hiya WonderfulBob with Buns
You'd have to decide how you were going to measure 'size', whether in terms of length or weight.

In terms of length (larger than Messie or Archi) you'd be including things like salps, nematode worms (or it could have been a nemertean - I am getting rusty), some shark and many cetaceans.

In terms of weight (heavier than Messie or Archi) you'd be including MANY MANY things, like MOST cetaceans, pinnipeds, sharks, MANY fish, and reptiles (some of these sea turtles are monstrously heavy).

It would be fantastic to have this information compiled for the press - I have never gotten around to doing so. The problem is past exaggerations in length and weight, and the difficulties associated with getting accurate weights for these monstrous things (basically you would have to cut them up into manageable pieces in order to weigh them accurately .... and who really wants to do that with a priceless specimen).

An Honours project? What are you up to?

 

[bobwonderbuns]

nope, no honours projects or anything like that. Just a deep love (no pun intended) of the sea and its creatures. Very cool indeed!!

 

[OB]

It's easy (and tempting ) to enter the realm of cryptozoology here: Lusca is, together with Octopus giganteus, the largest proposed cephalopod around. Alas, it is more than likely that neither exist...

 

[Graeme]

Oooh, Cryptozoolgy! I'm all ears.
Love the stuff.

Graeme

 

[chrono_war01]

If only the Octopus giganteus was real.....

 

[Graeme]

I think Collossopus would be a fitting name

Graeme

 

[Sordes]

But now (a bit stupid) question: How much weighs the largest giant squids really? I have read often about weights of 1, sometimes also 2 or 3 tons (OK, Heuvelmans speculated about weights untill 200 tons...ridiculous), but what was in fact the largest documented weight for a giant squid? It would be very interesting to know the exact weight-size relations of a fresh complete giant squid (inclusive mantle-length), in this case it would be easy to calculate the weight for any size.

 

[Tintenfisch]

The largest giant squid specimens reliably reported so far are about 250kg (these are females of 12-13m); the colossal specimen we had was, if I remember correctly, about the same, and was definitely not full-grown. So I would put the upper weight limits of the currently known/recognized largest (=heaviest) squid species (Mesonychoteuthis)at 350-400kg.

 

[sorseress]

Would they lose any body weight upon death? Most of them haven't had all their parts intact, right?

 

[Sordes]

Well, I think even a complete squid carcass could lose weight by losing water when it is too long in dry adjacence.

 

[Sordes]

But still something about size and weights: If the Mesonychoteuthis-specimen with the mantle-length of about 2,2m had already a weight of about 250kg, a specimen with 4m mantle-length would indeed be much heaver, more about 1,5tons.

 

[monty]

All this talk of drying out makes me inclined to point out that in the water, both Archi and Messie are neutrally buoyant, so they weigh nothing (although their mass is still relevant in terms of intertia and such).

 

[monty]

But still something about size and weights: If the Mesonychoteuthis-specimen with the mantle-length of about 2,2m had already a weight of about 250kg, a specimen with 4m mantle-length would indeed be much heaver, more about 1,5tons.

Yeah, I'm with you on that estimate-- the weight should scale more like the cube of the length, so if it's 1.8 times as long, it's around 5.8 times as heavy, or 1450kg...