Posts Tagged Architeuthis

Between The Lines

Tue, Oct 12th, 2010  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures 1 Comment

Photographing sperm whales can be a challenge for many reasons, including the fact that…well…they’re not always terribly photogenic. They often just look like big brown blubber logs with stubby fins, a tail and a mouth.


Making sperm whales look nice can be challenging.

Sometimes, you have to look between the lines…or in this instance, between the jaw lines…to see something interesting:


See the leftover squid arm? Note the big teeth too.

I have to confess that I didn’t notice the squid arm while I was in the water, since the whale passed by at relatively high speed. The swells were also considerable, which made framing the whale a challenge as well.

I can’t be 100% certain, but I suspect the leftover calamari segment was from an Architeuthis squid. From the above photo, it looks like the arm was attached to the whale’s face, perhaps as a result of the “teeth” on the squid’s suckers, which look like this (photo below from last year):

giant squid suckers

In October 2009, I recovered a 351cm segment of an Architeuthis arm from the water after we saw a sperm whale breach. I suspected at the time that the squid arm might have been attached to the whale and became dislodged when the cetacean breached.

This photo seems to offer some support for my conjecture.

Note: Photographs taken under permit.

Choose Your Travel Companions With Care

Sun, Nov 8th, 2009  |   Funny Stuff, Marine Life, Places, Adventures 11 Comments

If you travel as frequently as I do, you learn to be careful about the people you associate with. I pride myself on being highly discriminating, choosing to fraternize only with individuals of the utmost sophistication and grace:

giant squid

People who, when confronted with a scientifically valuable discovery of a 351cm giant squid arm segment, would behave in a manner befitting the circumstances:

Though I must admit error in judgement from time to time, as during my most recent excursion, when imprudent choice of travel companions precipitated the need for me to undertake an impromptu ablution to expunge the unyielding aroma of decomposing cephalopod:

How to Measure a Giant Squid Arm

Wed, Nov 4th, 2009  |   Marine Life, Places, Adventures, Video, Multimedia 4 Comments

Here is a sentence that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time: “I swam down into the blue and retrieved the arm of giant squid.”

I know. For most people, doing something like this isn’t a life goal. I get it. I’m not normal.

But it doesn’t matter, because I did it, and it’s something I’ll never forget.

giant squid arm

Here’s the condensed version of what happened:

While we were cruising along in deep water looking for signs of sperm whales, the captain’s wife shouted something from the top deck. I looked up and saw her gesturing frantically, but with the combined noise of the engine, wind and ocean swells, I could neither understand what she was saying, nor grasp the reason for her excitement.

Following the time-tested principle of “act first, think later”, I grabbed my mask, snorkel, fins and camera and jumped into the water. Visibility was excellent. I immediately saw a long, reddish object sinking into the blue…and swam down about 10 metres to take a closer look.

giant squid arm

As I approached the squid arm, my brain finally kicked in (the “think later” part), and I realised that the only reason a rapidly sinking giant squid arm would be at the paltry depth of 10 metres is if a sperm whale (i.e., large animal with big mouth) had just dropped it…like perhaps only seconds earlier.

At that point, I looked around in a brief moment of panic (or sanity, depending upon your point of view)…thinking that perhaps the whale that had dropped such a tasty morsel might not appreciate my absconding with it. Fortunately, the previous owner was nowhere to be seen, so I avoided becoming whale food grabbed the squid arm and swam back to the surface.

We kept the arm segment on ice until the next morning, when we had sufficient space and light to measure it, then donated it to the research community.

Below is a short video of fellow underwater photographer Douglas Seifert measuring the (pungent) squid arm: