Colossal squid! It's big.

I haven't written about giant squid in a while, so here's a link to a newly caught colossal squid, which is apparently like a giant squid, just heavier. (via Boing Boing)

Found elsewhere

At one time, I wrote much about giant squid here. I've since fallen off that wagon, though I still find them intensely interesting. If you're still looking for news about giant squid, or squid in general, check out Squid, a blog with all the latest news, merchandise and general weirdness about squids. Well worth your time.

Wrestling squid and octopus!!

My god I must have this film: The Calamari Wrestler. Read that first link, there is a great description of what this is all about and some pictures. I've added it to my wishlist. I must have it!

Live giant squid photos!

The first live photos of a giant squid! (As seen on BoingBoing.)

A return?

Well, things have been more than a little quiet here over the past year. All those of you still checking in, keeping me on your blogrolls or just occasionally thinking of me -- thank you! All those of you who have totally forgotten about me and my blog, well, I can't blame you.
My absence is the fault of my life going really well. I have a wonderful girlfriend who lives with me, I got promoted at my job and I've been doing more and more fiction writing. (The fiction writing is still not where I want it to be, but I continue to hack away at it and hopefully continue to improve.)
(I haven't been totally away, however. For those who are interested in that sort of thing, I have written a couple of posts on my Giant Monster Blog.)
But now I plan to make a return. I don't think I'll post as often as I once did, maybe once a day if I'm feeling productive. But I hope I can make this more interesting this time around. We'll see. I would suggest using the XML link to the right if you have a newsreader, or My Yahoo!, that way you'll know when I have a new post up without wasting time checking my site.
And for old time's sake, here's a set of photos of store front display of giant squid stuffed dolls.

Giant squid on the march

This story is fun for its headline alone: Giant squid 'taking over world.' According to the article, giant squid have a greater biomass on the planet than humans do. Apparently, there are fewer predators of these cephalapods.
The scientists in the story seem to refer to cephalapods without mention of giant squid. I wonder if they mean giant squid or just squid in general? And if it is true that there are so many giant squid, why haven't we captured a live one yet? I don't get it. The world continues to confound us.

Giant squid news

Well, I've nearly let a whole season of giant squid news get by me. So here is some quick links about giant squid and a few other creatures of the deep, enjoy.

• A giant squid that washed up in New Zealand in August has been confirmed as one of the largest ever found.


• Greenpeace is fighting to stop bottom trawling, a technique that uses nets to scour the bottoms of the ocean, destroying everything else in its path. Among the many species endangered by bottom trawling, according to Greenpeace: Giant Squid.


• There's some unusual behavior by squid (with pic) in the northwest. Imagine a beach covered in dead Humboldt squid.


• And most importantly, the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale University in New Haven has the opening of the exhibition "In Search of the Giant Squid." It's going to be at the museum until January and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the giant squid. At the exhibition, I learned of another fascinating cephalapod: the Vampire Squid:
  

  William Beebe (1926) described V. infernalis as "a very small but terrible octopus, black as night with ivory white jaws and blood red eyes". Despite this horrific description, V. infernalis is a rather docile animal, and most often hangs motionless in the water column, with only slight movements of the fins for balance.



• Not a cephalapod, but interesting nonetheless: scientists have managed to recreate an ancient sea spider, adding a link in the evolutionary chain. (with pic)


• My girlfriend won this awesome poster of "Monsters of the Deep" recently, but the film (or show?) it advertises seems to have completely disappeared. According to the seller, "The film is so rare that it is not even listed in the Internet Movie Database, but my Library of Congress book shows it to be from 1932." Anyone know anything about this film? The poster of a giant manta ray is just too cool.

Sexy squid

Giant squids may be the swinger of the deep seas.

Squid love, it turns out, starts with a 5-foot-long penis and may include homosexuality, cannibalism, even group sex. Ahem.

Giant squid catch

Fishermen off the Canary Islands have caught a 30 foot long giant squid.

Casually catching giant squid

Can this possibly be right? This article, about improved salmon fishing, has a one sentence statement that just doesn't seem correct:

A commercial boat brought in two tons of giant squid Sunday, the smallest 8 pounds, the largest 40.

What? Wouldn't that be a huge scientific event? It has to be a typo, it just can't be right.

Save the giant squid

Britain is fighting to stop deep sea trawling, which it believes is killing many underwater species, including the giant squid.

How giant squid aid you

Scientist says the eyes of the giant squid may hold the key to solving visual impairment. The story includes a rather awful picture of a detached giant squid eye.

Hunting giant squid babies

The New Yorker writes about a giant squid hunter!
Steve O’Shea, a marine biologist from New Zealand, is one of the hunters—but his approach is radically different. He is not trying to find a mature giant squid; rather, he is scouring the ocean for a baby, called a paralarva, which he can grow in captivity. A paralarva is often the size of a cricket.
“Squid, you see, hatch thousands of babies,” O’Shea told me recently, when I called him at his office at the Earth and Oceanic Sciences Research Institute, at the Auckland University of Technology. “Most of these will get eaten up by larger predators, but during periods of spawning the sea should be filled with an absolutely fantastic amount of these miniature organisms. And, unlike the adults, they shouldn’t be able to dart away as easily.”

Any tentacled hole will do

Apparently giant squid aren't too choosy about their sexual partners.

Giant squid fandom stretches across blogosphere

Brokentype writes about everybody's favorite Giant Squid in a nice long essay filled with lots of interesting links. Most of it I've linked to at one time or another, but it's a great essay.
Also, he points to this poster of a giant squid fighting a T-Rex. How cool is that?

Keeping your giant octopus busy

Aquarium workers have created an "octobox," a puzzle box to keep a playful giant squid busy. Apparently, the giant squid, "Titan", already can open jars and is generally very curious. No picture at the link, sorry.

Squid attacking Chile

Scientists use satellites to explain Chilean giant squid invasion. Includes a couple of nice pictures, one of a squid in the water.

Giant Squid related

Thanks to a posting at the Night Shade message boards, I found these interesting giant squid related links. First is paintings by Skot Olsen that use the giant squid as a symbol. They look like some twisted take on Popeye.
The second link is TONMO, the Octopus News Magazine Online. It's set up as a message board and there seems to be a ton of stuff to look at.

The giant squid menace

A skull found in Gastineau Channel in Juneau, Alaska, is bringing back stories of a man who may or may not have been killed by a giant squid.

Eight Arms to Hold You. Some amazing pictures of a giant squid as well as a long article I haven't read yet.