Japanese marine biologists have captured on film the elusive giant squid, but killed it in the ensuing struggle. (Via Jules Crittenden):
Japanese marine biologists, however, have lured a giant squid to the surface of the ocean, off the Ogasawara Islands south of Tokyo, capturing it on camera as it reached out to eat one of its relatives.
They filmed it as they reeled it in. And, according to Tsunemi Kubodera, the team’s leader, it "put up quite a fight".
It was not quite as long as the largest squid yet recorded — a specimen found in 1887 that measured 18.2m (60ft) from the top of its head to the tip of its tentacles. But the young female was still twice as long as the average person is tall, at 3.5m.
Alas it did not survive the experience. "It took two people to pull it in," Dr Kubodera said, "and they lost it once, which might have caused the injuries that killed it...
"It struggled furiously to escape by spouting water from its funnel. This means they can actually swim pretty fast, in addition to their normal movement just drifting in deep waters," he said as he showed the film to reporters.
For years, I've thought that the best horror movies are those taking place underwater. For some reason, being in the dark in the woods never scared me as much as those movies where the scientists were stuck miles under the ocean in complete darkness.
After I first heard about these giant squids, I was completely freaked out. There's just something about a creature whose eyes are as big as a human head and whose tentacles are longer than a London bus that scares me more than King Kong, Michael Myers, Jason, and Freddy Krueger combined.
Now, I guess, we'll be seeing the film of these gigantic monsters all over the Discovery Channel. I'll be waiting for the Halloween movie.
P.S.--I originally titled this post "They Still Give Me the Willies," but given that the post under it is about Monica Lewinsky, I thought it would be better to change it.
|