Trawler Nets Giant Squid Off Australia[Original headline: Sea Monster!
Trawler Nets 40-Foot Giant Squid]
Melbourne Museum scientist Mark Norman said little was known about giant squid, which live up to 1,500 metres (4,800 feet) below the surface, and none had ever been seen alive.
Over the past five years, 40 had been caught dead in nets off Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The latest was hauled aboard a trawler off southwest Australia last week.
Not Very Tasty
Scientists conducted DNA tests on the specimen hoping to learn more, cutting open its stomach to see what it had been eating. Inside, they found the remains of fish and smaller squid.
“You’d get giant calamari rings the size of car tires, but they’d taste like floor cleaner,” Norman joked with reporters on Wednesday, displaying the preserved squid.
Norman said the creature’s only predators were sperm whales, which had to take a large breath and dive for up to an hour to catch them. He said the find was exciting because the squid and their environment were almost unknown to humans.
“It just shows how little we know about down there,” Norman said. “It’s just great that there is such an unknown frontier.”
Norman said the squid had now been placed in a “pickling coffin” for preservation. The museum hoped to put it on display alongside a humpback whale skeleton.
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Reuters via ABC News / Australia - February 7 2001
