As a fan of the sci-fi channel (Love Eureka!) and an even bigger fan of B movies of the 50’s and 60’s, I always thought giant squid only existed in the movies terrorizing submarine crews. Apparently not.

Fishermen in New Zealand captured a giant squid. Known as the “colossal squid” they are the largest known squid species in the world and are believed to have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom.


Colossal Squid. Notice the red hands at the top left.

According to New Zealand’s Ministries of Fisheries,

“The animal was first described in 1925 from two tentacles found in the stomach of a sperm whale. The squid’s known range is from Antarctica to the southern extremities of South America, South Africa and New Zealand. Analysis of sperm whale stomachs suggests the colossal squid makes up three quarters of the diet of large sperm whales and it is likely there are large numbers of them in Antarctic waters.”

Yikes!



A while back I found one of these critters washed up on the beach. A sweet little thing, it measure about 8 inches in length, and certainly a far cry from the colossal squid.

Andrew Zimmerman, host of The Food Network’s Bizarre Foods once ate squid tentacles immediately after cut from the body and while they were still squirming. He said he could feel the suction cups doing their thing.

Again, Yikes!


And painter, Skot Olsen depicts squid in his paintings including this one here. Visit his website. The paintings are really quite good and totally absorbing.

Just like the squid, giant or otherwise, life tends to have many different shapes and sizes. How you see it depends on your perspective.

Today, I invite you to shift your position a bit and look at your life from a slightly different perspective. Maybe that giant, colossal problem will look more like a miniature version or maybe it’ll look like a figment of your imagination.

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Copyright 2009 Diana Taylor, Pug At The Beach
Photo credit: New Zealand Ministries of Fisheries, Diana Taylor, Skot Olsen

For more interesting squid info visit:
Squid links: seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/squid_links.html


For copy & paste:

New Zealand Ministries of Fisheries: www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Press/Press+Releases+2007/February+2007/Amazing+specimen+of+worlds+largest+squid+in+NZ.htm

Squid artist: http://www.skotolsen.com/