Giant squid found off California coast

Remains of a rare giant squid turned up off the coast of Santa Cruz, California yesterday. According to researchers from the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation, this specimen was probably 25 feet long and weighed hundreds of pounds when alive. Only one giant squid has ever been caught on video alive. From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

A flock of gulls feeding on the carcass alerted the crew to the remains. Their first thought, said crew members, was that the animal was a seal but after motoring closer to it they recognized the chewed-up squid...

(Giant squid expert and Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History curator Eric) Hochberg said there's likely several squid along the California coast, but because the animal swims at depths of thousands of feet, it's almost never seen and difficult to study...

"The animal is just so big and so rare ... it's very easy for people to get a little nervous about what it is, and the stories go from there," Hochberg said.

Giant squid (Thanks, Vann Hall!)

Previously on BB:
• Giant squid caught on film for first time
• Giant plastinated squid
• Giant squid bag by Gama-Go

• [Takuan]

  oh, that was Great Aunt Hortense, dear lady, a little stringy though. That’s why we didn’t finish.

• [iamcantaloupe]

  Hoorah! I’m in Massachusetts right now but I live in Santa Cruz and it brought a smile to my face to see us mentioned on BB.

• [jjasper]

  link on the image goes to http://www.boingboing.net/2007/01/08/3d-printing-comes-to.html

  Can we print a squid?

• [eustace]

  There’s one bigger than this living near the outflow from Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. A beautiful miniature tropical zone there, but no coastal access nearer than 10 miles. I used to sneak out there in my kayak to spearfish – but all us locals knew how to deal with giant squid. Built a little pressure bottle out of 4130 steel. Put a nozzle on it, filled it with Windex at 30 atmospheres. Nothing can withstand Windex.

• [Takuan]

  and some of them use it for their arthritis

• [Pixel]

  I was about to ask the same question.

  Or maybe we could print things out of squids. That would be a great combination of awesome and horrifying.

  Quick 3-D prototyping! machine automatically constructs them from squid parts!

• [David Pescovitz]

  Ha! (error fixed)

• [Art]

  Long live the “Kraken”

• [carriem]

  isn’t that the woman in the photos from Abu Ghraib?

• [Takuan]

  what’s so strange about this? You people practice burial at sea (thanks for the snacks), some of my people practice sky burial.

• [Moon]

  Hahahaha, CARREM. Torturing giant squids is her new game!!

  I’m beginning to think that giant squids aren’t that rare. We just don’t go to where they are (deep ocean) very much.

• [Tenn]

  May (It?) Rest In Peace.

  Tak-tak, what would be the appropriate pronoun here? Hmm?