Colossal squid goes under knife
- added April 29, 2008
- 8 responses
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- jcwelker
- added this
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Scientists in New Zealand will shortly put their rare intact colossal squid specimen under the dissection knife.
The 10-metre (34 feet) long, half-tonne carcasse has been defrosting since Monday afternoon in Wellington.
Very little is known about colossal squid; only about 10 specimens have ever been caught and brought to shore.
Scientists hope the dissection will yield new information about where and how they live and breed.
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa is showing the operation on a live webcast.
One of the first tasks will be determining the creature's gender.
"If we get ourselves a male it will be the first reported (scientific) description of the male of the species," noted Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at Auckland's University of Technology, who is among the scientific team of 10.
The Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni specimen was caught in February 2007 in the Ross Sea off Antarctica.
The 10-metre (34 feet) long, half-tonne carcasse has been defrosting since Monday afternoon in Wellington.
Very little is known about colossal squid; only about 10 specimens have ever been caught and brought to shore.
Scientists hope the dissection will yield new information about where and how they live and breed.
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa is showing the operation on a live webcast.
One of the first tasks will be determining the creature's gender.
"If we get ourselves a male it will be the first reported (scientific) description of the male of the species," noted Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at Auckland's University of Technology, who is among the scientific team of 10.
The Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni specimen was caught in February 2007 in the Ross Sea off Antarctica.
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All I thought about when I first saw this was "squid sushi". Is that a bad thing?
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Awesome!
Sometimes, things like this make me wish I stuck with marine biology. ;)-
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- Binarysunset
- 2 months ago
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If you're a guy and you have a long ding-dong, they call you "tripod." What if you're a guy who happens to be a 10-armed squid? Then what do they call you?
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- Julie_Soller
- 2 months ago
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It's creatures like this that freak me out about going into the sea. F**k that noise!
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- ice_monster
- 2 months ago
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That squid could eat me!! ahhh! I'm scared to go swimming now...what if I get devoured by one of those!
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Check out the link for some of the findings of the colossal squid dissection, and what it supposedly tastes like! -
I always thought the Giant Squid was huge, but this is unbelievable!
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So we pull up this thing from the deep and eat its eye...this is like dream, and we need dream interpretation. Yes, there are monsters out there. But we can learn from them!
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