Message on Giant Squids

From the mailbag:

Dear Mr Drinnon

I have recently discovered your article about the monotypes Architeuthis and Mesonychoteuthius on http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.de/

And I must say, I'm pretty happy about your survey, for it is one of the few circulating, that takes a critical approach on the maximum size dilemma.

Well from the standpoint of an historian that originally planed to study biology, I have to make clear hat the medieval image of the Kraken does not really correspond to the modern image of a huge cepahlopod at all.

But I absolutely share your critical opinion onwards.

Even the largest beak of Mesonychoteuthis found in a sperm whale's stomach, exceeding the one of the now famous 2007 catch, does not automatically indicate (like some experts say; I'm excluding Mr O'Shea here), that Mesonychoteuthis will reach a maximum weight of about 1000 pounds. This is is totally suspicious, for we have absolutely no valid data (we would need a bunch of specimen to work on this thesis), that the beak size of specimen of the same size is variating or not.

Affectionate regards

Luddwig Lochschmidt

I am grateful for this letter and I think the point is well made. My thanks to Mr. Lochschmidt.

"Giant Squid in California" Photo

This image was published in the "Science" section where I retrieved it and under this headline:

Second Giant Sea Creature Washes Ashore Along Santa Monica Coastline - Alarms Sound Over Radioactive Gigantism

Giant Squid Discovered On California Coast And Scientists Suspect Radioactive Gigantism

Published January 10, 2014

http://www.lightlybraisedturnip.com/giant-squid-in-california/

The photograph is a hoax, it has taken a much smaller squid and blown it up too enormous size by using photoshop.

"Enemies of the Architeuthis"

There is a somewhat peculiar exchange of views between Ivan Sanderson and Bernard Heuvelmans recorded in the Conclusions part of In The Wake of the Sea Serpents. On page 556 and under the "Merhorse" heading, Heuvelmans quotes a message from Sanderson as saying:

Natives of the Arufra Sea and notably in the Aru Islands [near to Irian Jaya, Western New Guinea-DD] call them the equivalent of 'Enemies of the Architeuthis' and assert that if grabbed while feeding inside a reef by the long arms of a giant squid lying on the outside of the reef, they will just chop off said arms and eat them, or pull the cephalopod over the reef by brute force.

Which elicits the reply from Heuvelmans "This reputation of enmity may be formed on an accidental observation of a duel between a Merhorse and a giant squid which have come to the surface from the depths where they both regularly live" and before the block quote Heuvelmans states "The Arufura Sea which connects to the Coral Sea, where there are many sightings of Merhorses" (perhaps half a dozen, but some of Heuvelmans' reports of "Merhorses" in the Coral Sea include some obvious elephant seals on the Great Barrier Reef of Australia) And before one gets too cheerful about the Coral Sea being connected to the Arufura sea, we are talking about islands about three thousand miles apart when we are talking about the Aru Islands and New Caledonia.

I had thought I had a marvelous statement to indicate giant squid were part of the Whale-eater's regular diet, but in checking this story out I find no indication of what the giant squid night be called, I find no indication that giant squid are ever found anywhere near the Aru islands, nor yet near New Caledonia, at all. They tend to avoid the tropics. So actually we have no confirmation for either Sanderson's or Heuvelmans' statements quoted here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_squid           Distribution of giant squid from strandings (map)

However I don't think either man was actually making anything up out of whole cloth. So I hold onto
 some hope that giant mosasaurs [As the originals for Leviathans, Whale-eaters and the largest form of "Merhorse"] regularly kill and eat giant squids on our world and in our time.

http://necromoprhvsfellowship.blogspot.com/2012/08/magneto-vs-sarah-kerrigan-battle.html


ADDENDUM: Jay Cooney and I were discussing the matter on Facebook after the original publication of this blog. Jay Cooney started in with this comment: "I've seen American science documentaries refer to non-Architeuthis squid as 'giant squids.' So I think it's likely that Heuvelmans and Sanderson heard "giant squids" and interpreted it as thus. Or, maybe there just haven't been any recorded beaching a of Architeuthis in that region"
And so I replied:"Both of them [Sanderson and Heuvelmans] thought the genus was cosmopolitan. And in this case it probably was such a thing as informants said 'giant octopus/squid' and they were understood as referring to Architeuthis, which was the only genus of giant squids commonly known at the time. Now we also do have lesser genera of squids related to Architeuthis but not so large and often confused with them: perhaps it was one of those other ones.The thing to do is to see which of those other genera is a likely candidate in that range"
" I may cut this conversation out and paste it on that blog, I think we have hit on something"
And so Jay Cooney replied: "Yeah, I think that's likely. Sounds good Dale."

It would seem that the Bigfin Squid would be a good candidate, it has very long arms and is largely tropical in range. I have seen videos of this squid mistakenly identified as Architeuthis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfin_squid
But there are several other squids in the mantle length of a meter or more range, Architeuthis accepted as 2.25 meters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_size

 

It seems that the tentacles of these squid can be almost 30 feet long and that they feed by blind groping about on the seafloor or at medium depths, seizing anything suitable they might come across. On occasion, such a creature feeding along a reef could mistakenly attach onto a mosasaur by its groping and then you have the scenario presented by Sanderson and Heuvelmans. And so we would have confirmation the whale-eater does feed on big deepsea squids: the possibility they would also feed on Architeuthis within the appropriate range once again also begins to sound more likely.

Kraken or Colossal Octopus=Colossal Squid

 

There has been some controversy about the giant squid as compared to the colossal squid as soon as it started becoming evident that the colossal one was the much larger of the two. The Colossal squid is most often found as an inhabitant of the southern oceans, a comparison of two kinds of squid from below is from the Wikipedia (Links added lower down page) I believe a confusion between the two has been going on for a long time: in particular, Denys de Montfort' Poulpe Colossal (Giant Octopus) seems to draw from the Colossal squid based on the comparison I made up above. The ship under attack was based on a report made in Angola, southern Africa and not far off from the Colossal squid's usual range around Antarctica (see map at bottom of this page.)

 

Colossal_squid_caught_in_February_2007

 

"Giant Octopus" supposedly attacking a ship in British service in the Indian ocean. The Colossal octopus was supposed to be larger and more aggressive than the giant squid and to fight with whales more often, and to be a more dangerous opponent. The carcass of a "Record octopus" found cast  ashore at Natal, South Africa, in 1924, was more than likely a colossal squid (Bernard Heuvelmans, In The Wake of The Sea-serpents, p. 73)  and therefore I wonder if the other record Thimble Tickle squid off Newfoundland in 1878 was not also a Colossal squid of a heretofore-unsuspected Northern population (Thimble Tickle squid in Heuvelmans, pp.63-65) The northern population would also have been the reason for the unusually large squids reported by Olaus Magnus in 1555 and at Arnarnaesvick, Iceland in 1790. (ibid, illustration p.59) and therefore it would be a mistake to say the giant squid was the origin for the myth of the Kraken. The Northern Colossal squid would be, but of course "Kraken" might have been vague enough to contain both species in casual references. Nonetheless, I do think we have evidence that points to at least the former existence of a Northern Colossal squid and that the myth of the Kraken was a reference to it (See map at the bottom of this article)
There are a few experts I am aware of that are willing to consider at least the former existence of a northern species of colossal squid but as yet nobody seems to have made a formal declaration of it, even as a Cryptid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_squid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_squid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantic_octopus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken

http://cameronmccormick.blogspot.com/2007/03/ludicrous-giant-squid-claims.html

The Lord Geekington weighs in on giant, supergiant and Cryptid giant squids in the following article:

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Ludicrous Giant Squid Claims

Dear Constant Readers,

I imagine you thought the previous post [*Appended-DD] was a bit short, didn't you? This was originally the second half of my previous post; but because of divergent tone and topic, I felt obliged to split it up. Giant squid size, though controversial, is still in the realm of Zoology. But now we're going to go on a little adventure into the fringe world of Cryptozoology. Bernard Heuvelmans, the founder (of sorts) of Cryptozoology wrote a book on the giant squid; a condensed form of which appeared in his In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents. If you thought the reported giant squids bigger than O'Shea's likely maximum of a 2.25 m (7'5") mantle length were a little out there...you're in for something.

Heuvelmans did indeed recognize that there was a disrepancy in the size of "modern" giant squid washing up and those that were reported from Newfoundland, and mentioned that some scientists considered the earlier reports to be exaggerated. Heuvelmans, however, thought he had a more modern account of a squid in the same size class. On October 25, 1924, a Mr. White and Mr. Strachan was a "record octopus" (with 10 appendages) laying on the beach near Baven-on-Sea, Natal, South Africa. White made an illustration, but admitted that the nature was poor. The illustrations have it a total width of 24 feet (7.3 m) outstretched, a total length (including mutilated tentacles) of 28 feet (8.5 m), a tentacle circumference of 8 feet (2.4 m), and a body width of 9 feet (2.75 m). Judging from the illustration it appeared the entire mantle fell off and the arms reduced to stumps, but Heuvelmans judged the total length to be...115 feet long (35) including outstretched tentacles! He himself admitted that it was mutilated and possibly not an Architeuthis. He didn't seem aware of Mesonychoteuthis, but a severely mutilated, wayward, and exaggerated specimen of that could account for this report, assuming it has a basis in reality. This report doesn't appear to be officially recognized anywhere.

It appears that in Newfoundland, there were some unofficial specimens that dwarfed even the Thimble Tickle specimen. A fellow named Alexander Murray was the source of some of these reports. He had a firsthand account of a squid that washed up near St. John's, Newfoundland in November 1873 with a 7'9" (2.35 m) body and head. Since this made it on the official Architeuthis list, this demonstrates the he's at least reliable. Then he went on to make some genuinely alarming claims. He related a story from a Mr. Pike who saw a gigantic squid that measured...gulp...80 feet (24 m) from beak to tail. That's not counting tentacles, that's the beak and head! Could it have been a typo for 8 feet (2.4 m) or an exaggerated account including outstretched tentacles? A second story related by one Mr. Haddon mentioned a squid 90 feet long. Even if that's measuring extremely outstretched tentacles, it is still far beyond O'Shea's proposed maximum normal length of 13 m (37 feet)! Suffice to say, no scientist has included this unverified tales in their dossier, and probably for good reason. Whatever truth may have been behind these rumors has probably been extremely diluted.

Even less convincing than vague size reports are mentions of very large sucker scars on sperm whales. Heuvelmans cited a Mr. L. Harrison Matthews who wrote that sucker scars commonly reach 10 cm (4 inches), which Heuvelmans thought would imply squids with a head and body of more than 30 feet (9 m). Ivan T. Sanderson, another "founder" of Cryptozoology, wrote in his book Follow the Whale that sucker marks have been known to reach 18 inches (0.45 m) in diameter. And Heuvelmans then goes on to mention that Willy Ley, a proto-Cryptozoologist of sorts, talked about sucker marks 2 feet (0.6 m) in diameter! Heuvelmans fortunately thought this to be a typo of sorts, and I'll agree. So assuming that there were suckers marks that big in the first place, the normal explanation is that they're the result of scars on a young individual growing as they do. Of course, these sucker marks may not be from Architeuthis, but perhaps from a species with proportionally larger suckers. Perhaps they came from another source, such as lamprey bites. Heuvelmans appears to find these explanations less likely than absolutely gargantuan squids hundreds of feet long, demonstrating a skewed idea of probability that Cryptozoologists often have.

To try and make the gigantic sucker sizes seem more rational, Heuvelmans mentions a handful of tales of squid arms measuring up to 45 feet long and 2'6" thick. He reasons that instead of being tentacles (which could theoretically stretch that long), they were in fact the shorter arms. Since the arms are often shorter than the mantle length, he estimates squid with lengths excluding the long tentacles up 54 to 90 feet long (16.5 to 27.5 m) long. He then proposed that with the long tentacles they could reach 100 to 240 feet (30 to 73 m) if male, and up to 300 feet if they were female (91.5 m). Holy crap! He seems to be using a rather outdated size model, and using O'Shea's drawing of a giant squid (he of course actually studies them), I'd still figure that it would have to be 130 feet (39.5 m) long with 45 foot arms tops. Of course, in all likelihood these probably were just tentacles, and exaggerated ones at that. Heuvelmans rationalized that since so many of the Newfoundland squids were described on anecdotal evidence, that these reports should be just as good. Of course, he overlooked the obvious explanation.

So despite looking like he was overlooking historical evidence, Dr. O'Shea was in fact just ignoring bad evidence. Sure there were probably a few Architeuthis specimens in the past that exceeded his limit, but they're simply not the super-gigantic monsters that is so commonly imagined. Even with the larger Colossal Squid, I still don't think Architeuthis is an unimpressive animal at all...even if it isn't 300 feet long.

-Cameron


Addendum:

Please note that Heuvelmans actually proposed giant squids over 100 feet as a cryptid (i.e. unknown) species on his checklist from 1986. Apparently somewhere along the line he realized that the claims of ridiculously large size clearly don't reconcile well with Architeuthis. There is a sighting of a very large squid reported at night during WWII by one A. G. Starkey off the Maldives. He was of course alone on deck and saw a squid laying alongside the 175 foot (53 m) boat, taking up most of the length. He said the arms were 2 feet wide (0.6 m) and that the beak was visible. That last detail is rather odd, and I'm inclined to think that the whole story is either an extreme exaggeration or an outright fabrication.

Another outrageous story, also told in the citation-free There are Giants in the Sea by Michael Bright, was told by a Canadian fellow named Charles Dudoward, supposedly to Paul LeBlond and John Sibert in "Observations of Large Unidentified Marine Creatures in British Colombia and Adjacent Waters". In 1892, Dudoward's grandfather was assisting in the moving of a 100 foot (or 30 m) log bloom when suddenly it stopped. It apparently squished a squid bigger than the bloom itself which had an arm over 100 feet (or 30 m) with suckers ranging from saucer-sized to basin plate size...and the end had a hook! Dudoward himself encountered a squid like this in 1922 when on washed up near "Roberson D. Rudge's Port Simpson Hotel". It had arms 50 feet (15.2 m) long and a surviving tentacle 100 feet (30 m) long. The tentacle ended in a hook 10" (25 cm) wide and 12 in (31 cm) long. It was eventually towed out to sea. I've never heard of a cephalopod with a giant hook instead of tentacle clubs (any teuthologists out there know of any?) and I'm incredibly suspicious of these stories to say the least. Didn't anybody save the giant claw or at least take a photo? If it was based off anything, it was probably Onykia "Moroteuthis" robusta, a nearly Architeuthis-sized species which has hooks on its tentacle clubs. Actually, the clubs apparently look somewhat hook-like themselves too. More on that species later...

I was initially hesitant of including this information because of the poor citations and apparent non-Architeuthid (and hence not a giant squid) nature of some of the subjects. But heck, it wasn't going to fit in anywhere else. If anybody else knows of any outrageous gigantic cephalopod stories, let me know. Even though squid are apparently the most highly exaggerated animals on the planet, these stories do have a certain appeal.



Further Addendum:

And why not just make a long post even longer?

Oh, how could I resist photo mock-ups of just how big Heuvelmans' giant squid propositions are? And no, please do not think that these are serious in any way. I don't care if any of my images are reproduced...I do care if they show up on some Cryptozoology website presenting them seriously! I am seriously questioning how Heuvelmans got a doctorate degree anyways after realizing how absurd this stuff is...

Using Dr. O'Shea's Illustrations, this is how big the owner of 45 foot arms would be. I have no idea how Heuvelmans got a figure of up to 200-300 feet. Above this monster is me (at an alarming 5'8.5" or 1.74 m) and the actual record size for an Architeuthis. Please pay attention to the very large 60 foot (18 m) bull sperm whale below. The arms supposedly came from the stomach of this sort of whale...but how could the above squid possibly end up inside the whale? Did it just eat an arm or something? How could the whale possibly survive an encounter with something this big, even with its fancy sonar gun nose.



Here is the implication of Mr. Pike's giant squid with a head and body 80 feet long. Mind you, these aren't just any sea creatures surrounding it, but gigantic freaks themselves that are the largest of their respective kinds. I, of course, deviously re-used them from this previous post. This squid even beats out the super-gigantic dinosaur Amphicoelias fragilimus who's very (probable) existence I find deeply troubling. I suppose an animal as large as this squid could theoretically support itself in water, but squids of course have a "grow fast, live hard, die young" sort of lifestyle. I find it incredible that such fast growing creatures (with a lifespan of only a couple years) can get as big as they do.



And our finishing piece. Here you can see the two previous super-gigantic squid entries and the Thimble Tickle squid flanking the hypothetical uber-Cephalopod Heuvelmans proposed from 18 inch sucker marks. His proposition did recognize that a squid this size was problematical, but he did little to deny it. The building in the back is, of course, the Empire State Building which stands 1250 feet (381 m) to the roof and 1454 feet (443 m) to the top of the antennae. I was thinking about having the Hindenburg in the background, but thought that might be too ridiculous.

Alright, I'm definitely done with addendums now.

 

That earlier posting over again

 

Sunday, March 11, 2007

How big is the Giant Squid anyways?

Dear Constant Readers,

After writing a recent blog about Mighty Mesonychoteuthis, I began wondering again about how big the giant squid itself got. I was somewhat surprised a few years ago when Dr. Steve O'Shea said that "Architeuthis is not known to exceed a mantle length of 2.25 meters" on his fact sheet. He had examined himself over 100 specimens of the genus, so obviously his word carries a lot of weight. The record weight was 275 kg (600 lbs) and the length was 13 meters (42 feet) according to him as well. There does seem to have been a lot of exaggeration concerning the overall length of the squids because of the stretchy nature of the tentacles.

Using this list of published records by Michael Sweeney, however, we are able to see that there are a number of reports exceeding the mantle length and weight:


November 30, 1861. Canary Islands: 15-18 foot (4.5 to 5.5 m) body length.

October, 1871. Grand Banks, Newfoundland: 15 foot (4.5 m) body and weighing around 2000 pounds (~900 kg). The jaw was preserved and used for the syntype for Architeuthis princeps by Verrill.

1872. Coomb's Cove, Newfoundland: 10 foot (3 m) body.

December 1872. Bonivista Bay, Newfoundland: Estimated 14 foot (4.25 m) body.

October 26, 1873. Conception Bay, Newfoundland: 10 foot (3 m) body. A photograph accurate enough for measurements was taken.

December, 1874. Fortune Bay, Newfoundland: 12-13 foot (~3.75 m) body and head length.

October, 1875. Grand Banks, Newfoundland: Weighed 1000 pounds (450 kg).

November 21, 1877. Trinity Bay, Newfoundland: 11 foot (3.35 m) head and body.

November 2, 1877. Thimble Tickle, Newfoundland: 20 foot (6 m) head and body. Once regarded by Guinness as the world's largest invertebrate.

December 2, 1878. Notre Dame Bay, Newfoundland: 15 foot (4.5 m) head and body.

November 1, 1879. Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland: 9 foot (2.75 m) body.

May 23, 1879. Lyall Bay, New Zealand: 9'2" (2.8 m) mantle length.

June 30, 1886. Cape Campbell, New Zealand: 8'3" (2.5 m) mantle length.

1930? Goose Bay, New Zealand: 11 foot (3.35 m) body length.

1945. Pahau River Mouth, New Zealand. >1 ton (>900 kg)

August, 1961. Azores: 2.4 m (7'11") mantle length.

May 14, 1993. Morne Brabant, Mauritius: 4.5 m (14'9") mantle length, 240 kg (530 lbs)


It should be noted that there were at least a couple hundred other squid size records exist and the average size is certainly nowhere near these sizes. So what on earth is happening here? Perhaps some of them can be dismissed as being incorrectly typed (mantle length might be total length for the last one) or exaggerations, but I don't think that they can all be explained this way. Judging from these records, it would appear that Newfoundland experienced a very odd series of extremely large Architeuthis squids in the late 19th century. Is there some sort of connection between the stranding frequency and the very large size? I will say that O'Shea's maximum size, while not the historical maximum, is a lot more appropriate for the type of animal likely to be encountered. Who knows if we'll see an Architeuthis with a 4 or 5 meter mantle again...if anybody actually ever had before.

The story continues here.
-Cameron


Addendum:

The record sized specimens of Architeuthis (left) and Mesonychoteuthis (right) flank the enormous alleged specimen from Thimble Tickle. While that specimen has been considered the official largest squid specimen for some time, it should be noted that it is supported only by anecdotal evidence.

 

[Dale D Adds: Thimble Tickle recast as Mesonychoteuthis -

All of the beached squid were dead by the time they were discovered except the largest of them all - which remains the largest ever officially recorded - a monster still alive and flailing when three fishermen came across it at Thimble Tickle Bay on November 2, 1878. The men managed to hook the dying beast, which had ran aground in the shallow waters of an ebb tide, with a grapnel and then tied it to a tree to keep it from washing back out to sea. The squid’s carcass was measured at seven metres long (20 feet), with [an]11-metre (35-foot) tentacle... The miraculous scientific discovery was then promptly chopped up and turned into dog food. 

http://suite101.com/article/newfoundlands-giant-squid-a192825

 

In this report what we are given are primarily lengths and not proportionate widths. The tentacle section was not reported and is imaginary, hence gray in my version above. The one longer arm reported could well represent one of the longer tentacles of the colossal squid: it is disproportionately short for an Architeuthis. The body and mantle lengths are plausible enough for an unsuspected species of Northern Colossal squid, which is what I propose was its actual identity.-DD]

Colossal squid map from Wikipedia, amended. A is the attested range for the known colossal squid in the southern seas around Antarctica. B is the range of the hypothetical Norther counterpart Colossal squid, presumably the origin of the myth of the Kraken and also represented by a couple of unusually large squid carcasses which are known historically.

Fortean Times Plesiosaurian Sea Serpent Report

http://www.forteantimes.com/strangedays/cryptozoology/1529/sighting_a_sea_serpent.html

[Of course the sighting of a Long-necked, Plesiosaur-shaped Sea serpent isn't really so strange since there are hundreds of them on record and that is the single largest category of proveably-animal Sea serpent sightings, being several times more frequent than good solid giant eel reports (actually nearly ten times as many, but then they presumably breathe air while the eels don't need to even come to the surface at all) However this is a very good case that has not been published before and we are endebted to Neil Arnold who provided the report to Karl Shuker, who then in turn published the account in Fortean Times. It is an important case that does need to be made part of the permanent record-Dale D.]

Sighting a Sea Serpent

RAF navigator believes he saw one of the last of the large dinosaurs

January 2009 Fortean Times

By Dr Karl Shuker

Artwork of two Elasmosaurus marine reptiles swimming underwater. Chris Butler / Science Photo Library

Kent-based cryptozoological researcher Neil Arnold recently passed on to me, with kind permission from its source to publish it here, a remarkable, previously undocumented sea serpent sighting from the late 1950s. Neil’s source was a correspond­ent called Nick (whose email address I have on file), and one of the eyewitnesses in question was his father. Nick is anxious that the sighting be preserved, so here is his account of it:

“I am 39 years old with three children and my father is now 72. He was one of the last people to have been conscripted to national service, serving as navigator on RAF Shackleton aircraft in 1957, flying missions over Europe and much of South America. The official job of the Shackleton was as a spotting aircraft, and both pilot and crew were highly trained in this respect; their job was to search for submarines and relay the positions back to base. One of the tell-tale signs they used to look for [from] high above was a dark shape underwater, which could often be a shark or whale or other creature, but occasionally they would get lucky and find a submarine near to the surface. On one occasion, having seen such a dark shape near the surface, they flew down to investi­gate, and as they flew by this shape, every crew member on board saw the same thing – the neck and head of a large sea creature protruding from the surface. The nearest thing they could think of at the time was a plesiosaur. They were all in agreement but of course the pilot on the way home forbade them absolutely from talking about it; if they had done so they would all have been immed­iately grounded and accused of being drunk on duty.

“So anyway, my father decided to research what the creature might have been, and found that it was almost definitely an ‘elasmosaurus’ [long-necked plesio­saur], as the one thing that was very obvious was the huge length of the animal’s neck. My father was forced to conclude, and of course he’d read all about the cœlacanth, that there were indeed much larger ‘extinct’ creatures out there, unknown to science. He told me of the incident when I reached adulthood. Twenty years on, he still will swear to his grave that this is what they all saw on the flight…

“The year was 1957, the location was ‘about 500 miles [800km] north of the Canary Islands, in open sea’. The RAF Squadron was 228 Squadron, flying out of St Eval in Cornwall. (This air base has since been closed, but I believe remnants of the site remain.) I don’t know who the other crewmembers were and I have been thinking about making an official enquiry to the RAF archives. However, what I hope is important is the location (vague, sorry), species and date. I am more than aware that most scientists consider the poss­ibility of any large dinosaur [sic] still alive as astronomic­ally small, and my father himself also thinks now with sadness that he might have seen one of the last ones; his own reasoning is that at this point, not so long after the war, there really was not much shipping around; indeed, the area where they had the sighting was entirely devoid of shipping and maybe this was the reason the creature had considered it safe to surface, far from the throb of ships’ propellers.”

One zoologist who read Nick’s account suggested that perhaps they had seen a tentacle from a giant squid rise above the water surface, but Nick’s father emphatic­ally discounted any such poss­ibility. If by any chance any other Shackle­ton crewmember who saw this creature is reading this item and would like to contact FT, we’d love to hear from you!

Nick, via Neil Arnold, 28 Nov 2008.

[One should note that a common explanation for sea monster reports is that they are mistaken views of a giant squid's tentacle sticking out of the water: against this we also hasve the expressed opinion that the giant squids do not have sufficient muscular strength in their boneless tentacles to be able to do such a thing as wave them around in the air  well free of the water-Dale D.]

Recent News in Zoology

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/34769/title/Giant-Squid-Are-a-Single-Species/

National Geographic Photo

The Scientist»

The Nutshell

Giant Squid Are a Single Species

Arciteuthis from disparate locations around the world are genetically similar.

By Kate Yandell | March 20, 2013

The deep sea-dwelling giant squid Arciteuthis has turned up all over the world. But, whether in Florida or Japan, the invertebrates are all members of the same species, according to a paper published today (March 20) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Analyses of 43 squid from diverse locations showed that their mitochondrial DNA varies surprisingly little.

This lack of genetic diversity is puzzling. While giant squid are elusive, the researchers wrote, their populations are believed to be relatively large and geographically spread out—qualities usually associated with high diversity. The first live giant squid was spotted in 2004, and the Discovery Channel published the first video of the species earlier this year. But partially digested fragments of the cephalopods are found frequently in the stomachs of a key predator, the sperm whale, and scientists believe that they wouldn’t be able to support such common predation if their global population were small.

“It is difficult to reconcile this low genetic diversity with the reasonable assumption that Architeuthis are globally distributed with relatively large population size,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

The team collected 43 squid from diverse locations, including New Zealand, South Africa, and the Falkland Islands. They were found floating dead in the water, washed up on beaches, or as accidental by-catch from deep-sea fishermen.

The researchers said that there were many possible explanations for their findings. The squid’s mitochondria may have evolved unusually slowly, or they could have recently expanded from a small population to a large, widely distributed one. But the explanation they considered most likely was that the squid were unusually well traveled.

This could mean that the squid, which can grow as big as 18 meters in length, migrate through the oceans as adults. But past studies had shown that they are generally restricted to small hunting ranges. Instead, the researchers said, the squid may float long distances on sea currents in a juvenile, larva-like form, keeping geographically separate squid populations from forming.

http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0318-hance-crocodilenewt-new.html?80b4j0Pb3R2USVHX.99

 

The beautiful amphibian from Hell: scientists discover new crocodile newt in Vietnam (photos)

Jeremy Hance
mongabay.com
March 19, 2013

a New species: Ziegler's crocodile newt (Tylototriton ziegleri). Photo courtesy of Tao Thien Nguyen.

 

Researchers have discovered a new species of Vietnamese salamander that looks like it was birthed from an abyssal volcano. Found tucked away in Tokyo's National Museum of Nature and Science, the scientists described the species in the new edition of Current Herpetology. Coal-black with orange-tinted toes, the new crocodile newt (in the genus Tylototriton) was determined to be a new species when it showed morphological and genetic differences from near relatives. Despite its remarkable appearance, the researchers say these are typical colors for crocodile newts.

"I was asked by a curator to identify [the new species] and temporarily identified it as Tylototriton vietnamensis (the Vietnamese crocodile newt). However, the morphology was different from the original description of the Vietnamese crocodile newt," Kanto Nishikawa with Kyoto University told mongabay.com. "Because I have never seen the Vietnamese crocodile newt I could not confirm the specimens in Tokyo are undescribed species. In 2012, I had a chance to visit Vietnam and discussed [the specimen] with co-author, Tao Thien Nguyen, and made a conclusion on its taxonomic status, as new species."

The scientists named the new species Ziegler's crocodile newt (Tylototriton ziegleri) after Thomas Ziegler of Cologne Zoo who works with reptiles and amphibians in Vietnam. The new species is small, with males measuring 5.4 to 6.8 (2 to 2.6 inches) centimeters and females measuring 7.1 centimeters (2.7 inches). While genetic testing proved that it was a new species, the morphological differences were key.

Ziegler's crocodile newt is currently only known from only a small habitat of montane forest and wetlands.

"Currently, habitat loss and degradation, especially around the breeding ponds, is a major threat to the populations of the new species," the researchers write in the paper. "Legal protection of their habitats and regulation of excessive commercial collection are important measures for conservation of this species."

Crocodile newts are popular in the illegal pet trade and are often over-collected from the wild. There are now ten known species, eight of which have been evaluated by the IUCN Red List. Of these eight, three are threatened with extinction, four are listed as Near Threatened, and only one is Least Concern.

In the salamander family, newts have rougher skin than other salamanders as adults. Most of the world's salamanders are in the newt family, also known as efts.



The larva of Ziegler's crocodile newt. Photo courtesy of Tao Thien Nguyen.



Detail of adult Ziegler's crocodile newt. Photo courtesy of Tao Thien Nguyen.



CITATION: Kanto Nishikawa, Masafumi Matsui, and Tao Thien Nguyen. A New Species of Tylototriton from Northern Vietnam (Amphibia: Urodela: Salamandridae). Current Herpetology 32(1): 34–49, February 2013.

Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0318-hance-crocodilenewt-new.html?80b4j0Pb3R2USVHX.99#3IHApvDP2rftctrK.99

REPOST: CFZ Blog on Pauline SS

June 19, 2010 The PAULINE SS, 1875, And Its Most Improbable Proportions

One of the more famous sea-serpent sightings was supposedly witnessed in 1875 by the crew of the ship Pauline (by all hands, as a matter of fact) From Charles Gould's classic Mythical Monsters (1886):

The Barque "Pauline" Sea-serpent.

To the Editor of the Calcutta Englishman. SIR,—As I am not sure that my statement respecting the sea-serpent reached the Shipping Gazette in London, I enclose a copy that may be interesting to your numerous readers. I have been sent plenty of extracts from English papers, nearly all of them ridiculing my statement. I can laugh and joke on the subject as well as anyone, but I can't see why, if people can't fairly refute my statement, they should use falsehood to do so. The Daily Telegraph says, "The ribs of the ill-fated fish were distinctly heard cracking one after the other, with a report like that of a small cannon; its bellowings ceased, &c. To use the eloquent words of the principal spectator, it 'struck us all aghast with terror.'" If the writer knew anything of sailors, he would not write such bosh. Fear and terror are not in Jack's composition; and such eloquent words he leaves to such correspondents as described the ever-doubtful "man-and-dog-fight." I am just as certain of seeing what I described, as that I met the advertisement that the Telegraph has the largest circulation in the world staring me at every street corner in London. It is easy for such a paper to make any man, good, great, or interesting, look ridiculous. Little wonder is it that my relatives write saying that they would have seen a hundred sea-serpents and never reported it; and a lady also wrote that she pitied anyone that was related to anyone that had seen the sea-serpent. It is quite true that it is a sad thing for any man to see more, to feel more, and to know more, than his fellows; but I have some of the philosophy that made O'Connell rejoice in being the most abused man in the United Kingdom, for he also had the power of giving a person a lick with the rough side of his tongue. If I had any such power I would not use it, for contempt is the sharpest reproof; and this letter is the only notice I have taken of the many absurd statements, &c. &c. &c.

GEORGE DEEVAR, Master of the Pauline. Barque Pauline, Chittagong, January 15, 1876.

Barque Pauline, January 8th, 1875, lat. 5° 13' S., long. 35° W., Cape Roque, north-east corner of Brazil distant twenty miles, at 11 A.M. The weather fine and clear, the wind and sea moderate. Observed some black spots on the water, and a whitish pillar, about thirty-five feet high, above them At the first glance I took all to be breakers, as the sea was splashing up fountain-like about them, and the pillar, a pinnacle rock bleached with the sun; but the pillar fell with a splash, and a similar one rose. They rose and fell alternately in quick succession, and good glasses showed me it was a monster sea-serpent coiled twice round a large sperm whale. The head and tail parts, each about thirty feet long, were acting as levers, twisting itself and victim around with great velocity. They sank out of sight about every two minutes, coming to the surface still revolving, and the struggles of the whale and two other whales that were near, frantic with excitement, made the sea in this vicinity like a boiling cauldron; and a loud and confused noise was distinctly heard.

This strange occurrence lasted some fifteen minutes, and finished with the tail portion of the whale being elevated straight in the air, then waving backwards and forwards, and laving [lashing?] the water furiously in the last death-struggle, when the whole body disappeared from our view, going down head-foremost towards the bottom, where, no doubt, it was gorged at the serpent's leisure; and that monster of monsters may have been many months in a state of coma, digesting the huge mouthful. Then two of the largest sperm whales that I have ever seen moved slowly thence towards the vessel, their bodies more than usually elevated out of the water, and not spouting or making the least noise, but seeming quite paralysed with fear; indeed, a cold shiver went through my own frame on beholding the last agonising struggle of the poor whale that had seemed as helpless in the coils of the vicious monster as a small bird in the talons of a hawk. Allowing for two coils round the whale, I think the serpent was about one hundred and sixty or one hundred and seventy feet long, and seven or eight in girth. It was in colour much like a conger eel, and the head, from the mouth being always open, appeared the largest part of the body. . . . . I think Cape San Roque is a landmark for whales leaving the south for the North Atlantic. . . . .

I wrote thus far, little thinking I would ever see the serpent again; but at 7 A.M., July 13th, in the same latitude, and some eighty miles east of San Roque, I was astonished to see the same or a similar monster. It was throwing its head and about forty feet of its body in a horizontal position out of the water as it passed onwards by the stern of our vessel. I began musing why we were so much favoured with such a strange visitor, and concluded that the band of white paint, two feet wide above the copper, might have looked like a fellow-serpent to it, and, no doubt, attracted its attention While thus thinking, I was startled by the cry of "There it is again," and a short distance to leeward, elevated some sixty feet in the air, was the great leviathan, grimly looking towards the vessel. As I was not sure it was only our free board it was viewing, we had all our axes ready, and were fully determined, should the brute embrace the Pauline, to chop away for its backbone with all our might, and the wretch might have found for once in its life that it had caught a Tartar. This statement is strictly true, and the occurrence was witnessed by my officers, half the crew, and myself; and we are ready, at any time, to testify on oath that it is so, and that we are not in the least mistaken A vessel, about three years ago, was dragged over by some sea-monster in the Indian Ocean.

GEORGE DREVAR, Master of the Pauline. Chittagong, January 15, 1876.

Captain George Drevar, of the barque Pauline, appeared on Wednesday morning at the Police-court, Dale-street, before Mr. Raffles, stipendiary magistrate, accompanied by some of his officers and part of the crew of the barque, when they made the following declaration:— "We, the undersigned, captain, officers, and crew of the barque Pauline, of London, do solemnly and sincerely declare that on July 8th, 1875, in latitude 5° 13´, longitude 35° W., we observed three large sperm whales, and one of them was gripped round the body with two turns of what appeared to be a large serpent. The head and tail appeared to have a length beyond the coils of about thirty feet, and its girth eight or nine feet. The serpent whirled its victim round and round for about fifteen minutes, and then suddenly dragged the whale to the bottom, head first.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master,

"HORATIO THOMPSON,

"HENDERSON LANDELLO,

"OWEN BAKER,

"WILLIAM LEWAN.

"Again, on July 13th, a similar serpent was seen about two hundred yards off, shooting itself along the surface, head and neck being out of the water several feet. This was seen only by the captain and one ordinary seaman.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master.

"A few moments after, it was seen elevated some sixty feet perpendicularly in the air by the chief officer and the following able seamen, Horatio Thompson, Owen Baker, William Lewan. And we make this solemn declaration, conscientiously believing the same to be true.

"GEORGE DREVAR, Master.

"WILLIAM LEWAN, Steward.

"HORATIO THOMPSON, Chief Officer,

"JOHN HENDERSON LANDELLO, 2nd Officer,

"OWEN BAKER."

[The vessel attacked by the monster in the Indian Ocean was the Pearl. It was a 150 ton schooner allegedly attacked by a giant squid rather than a sea serpent.]

Some confirmation of Captain Drevar's story is afforded by one quoted by the Rev. Henry T. Cheeves, in The Whale and his Captors. The author says:—

"From a statement made by a Kinebeck shipmaster in 1818, and sworn to before a justice of the peace in Kinebeck county, Maine, it would seem that the notable sea-serpent and whale are sometimes found in conflict. At six o'clock in the afternoon of June 21st, in the packet Delia, plying between Boston and Hallowell, when Cape Ann bore west-south-west about two miles, steering north-north-east, Captain Shuback West and fifteen others on board with him saw an object directly ahead, which he had no doubt was the sea-serpent, or the creature so often described under that name, engaged in fight with a large whale. . . . . "The serpent threw up its tail from twenty-five to thirty feet in a perpendicular direction, striking the whale by it with tremendous blows, rapidly repeated, which were distinctly heard, and very loud, for two or three minutes; they then both disappeared, moving in a south-west direction; but after a few minutes reappeared in-shore of the packet, and about under the sun, the reflection of which was so strong as to prevent their seeing so distinctly as at first, when the serpent's fearful blows with his tail were repeated and clearly heard as before. They again went down for a short time, and then came up to the surface under the packet's larboard quarter, the whale appearing first, and the serpent in pursuit, who was again seen to shoot up his tail as before, which he held out of water for some time, waving it in the air before striking, and at the same time his head fifteen or twenty feet, as if taking a view of the surface of the sea. After being seen in this position a few minutes, the serpent and whale again disappeared, and neither was seen after by any on board. It was Captain West's opinion that the whale was trying to escape, as he spouted but once at a time on coming to the surface, and the last time he appeared he went down before the serpent came up."

Several authors have stated their belief that the crew of the Pauline had witnessed a struggle between a sperm whale and a giant squid, with the tentacles of the squid presumed to be the loops of the "Serpent" and the whale diving head-down at the end in order to finish his meal. Bernard Heuvelmans in his classic In the Wake of the Sea-Serpents (1968) does push for the notion that this was a sighting of what he calls a "Super-eel" fighting a whale by constriction. Heuvelmans has not done the math. In order for a long snake or eel to get two loops arround the whale's body and to have a thirty-foot length before and after the loops (noting that the before and after loops alone are worth the length of the entire whale), the gigantic eel has got to be at least 180 feet long, pushing 200 feet: and since its girth (not diameter) is seven or eight feet, the diameter is something like 2 1/2 feet, the creature ends up with a length 64 times its diameter. or close to it.

Furthermore the Delia account is not only similar, it is very nearly the same exact story over again. At which point nothwithstanding the weight of the swon testimony, I am inclined to call both stories hoaxes. The easier way out is to agree that the sailors could have been watching combats between sperm whales and retelling with some exaggeration.

There was a separate series of reports from New Caledonia in1923 and which Heuvelmans calls a fight between a giant squid and a "Merhorse" (ibid, pp.414-415) in this case, the definite "Merhorse" reports were made separately several days before and it seems some native women confused different reports together in the retelling. The "Merhorse" reports had been coming since June and the "Fight" was "on September 22 and also the 30th" the confusion of dates a week apart alone gives just cause to suspect that different events were jumbled together in local memory.

At any event, the Policeman Millot's account does describe three whales (he thought like sperm whales but bigger) and in indian file (three 60-foot-humps in a line again) but what seems to have been a fight with a giant squid was going on at the time. The story is very similar to the Pauline and I would suggest that in the squidfight, there was no "Merhorse" involved, only some sperm whales. In these cases the "Head and Tail" were seen flailing about while egaged in fighting the whale, and they were showing above water as being entwined around the whale. So that is not the same thing as a squid in the water hoisting its arms high into the air unaided. It may be beyond the squid's limit of strength to be able to do that unaided. Certainly some authorities have maintained that point. On the other hand, these sightings would tend to go against the notion that observers had not seen live giant squids at the surface in historical times: these would be unusual emcounters, and the squids probably in the process of being killed, but they would have been lively enough for the duration. All sightings of this type together probably make up something like 1/2 of 1% of Sea-serpent sightings.

2 comments:

RICHARD KING WRITES: Looking at Dale's scale drawing and then at the captain of the Pauline's drawing you can tell that there had to be some kind of mistake. 30 feet for the head and tail parts either way is half the whole length of the whale. The drawing made by the witness does not show anything like that it shows a part supposed to be the head only 10 or 12 feet long. And the supposed loops around the body are bunched up together in front like they would be if they were actually only tentacles reaching back out from where the whale's mouth would be underwater. Dale didn't mention the follow-up sighting of the 60-foot periscope by the captain of the Pauline but I gather that he puts no stock in it. Incidentally, great series about the Almas lately, Dale! Richard K.

Dale Drinnon said... In regards to the later sightings by the Pauline, I indicated in an earlier private reply to Richard that ANY report of a 60-foot-high periscope is AUTOMATICALLY suspect. The most tactful way of putting it would be that some sort of a mistake must've been made by jumpy crew members who reacted in a fashion close to hysteria. At the very least, the size of whatever-it-was must've been blown up out of all probability, probably in line with the exaggerated measurement for the presumptive head and neck in the initial Pauline sighting. It might have been nothing more exotic than a whale's tail seen briefly while diving. And Richard's remark about the Almas messages is in reference to my group, the Frontiers-of-Zoology, during the course of which I pointed out the Mongolian white jade skull replica comparble to a Neanderthal skull, subject of an earlier CFZ blog posting.

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