[BLANK_AUDIO] Hi folks.

Welcome to a very short video lecture that introduces you to the giant and colossal squid, the largest of our marine mega-invertebrates and, and essentially completing our, our initial introduction to these animals. Alright so let's get started. For this video lecture my, the linear objective for you guys, I want you to be able to distinguish the physical features that are used to classify both the giant and colossal squid. And I also want you to be able to recall some of the details of the history of these animals. So, how, how their lives progress. And also I want you guys to be able to describe how these animals obtain nutrition in the deep sea, okay? So thinking along the lines of the previous lecture on, of the other marine mega-invertebrates. And this is a great image the illustrates that body plan for for the giant squid which actually was the inspiration for the class logo. Alright, so we know that humans have always had a long fascination with giant squid, and there's a lot of imagery out there to be that actually describes this. A couple of these images here are described that describe, you know, the attack of, of the kraken or the large squid or octopus on a ship, essentially bringing it down. And and if we look at you know, even in, even in poetry these animals are mentioned, so for example in Lord Alfred Tennyson's The Kraken we have a quote that says, below the thunders of the upper deep, far beneath in the abysmal sea, his ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep, the Kraken sleepeth. It's pretty dramatic. and, and in fact they've fascinated people for long time but it's actually really difficult to study them and Richard Ellis recently published a book called The Search for the Giant Squid: The Biology and Mythology of the World's Most Elusive Sea Creature, where he he actually describes the, some of the difficulties associated with that. So how's it possible when an animal that

can reach a length of 60 feet, which may or may not be scientifically accurate, and weigh over tons remained out of sight for so long? And we know that the giant squid exists because there are examples of animals that have washed ashore. And this picture on the left here is actually a picture of a giant squid that washed a floor, ashore in Newfoundland and is displayed in someone's bathtub. It's draped over something. And then on right is an image of that comes from Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, that describes the attack of the kraken and its effects on people. And and so we, we have a lot of interest. People have always been fascinated by these animals, but it's extremely difficult to study them. Very difficult. But in January of 2013, people were able to actually see giant squid in action for the first time. So this picture at right is a picture that illustrates how people have been studying squid, giant squid up until now. And that's essentially through the acts of those specimens that have come up in fishing nets or have washed ashore. And people have been able to measure things and study the physiology, physical structure and morphology of the animals through these specimens. However, an expedition of January 2013 was actually able to capture the behavior of giant squid in real time and I don't have that video footage here for you, but there's a link here that I would like you guys to go and look at. There's several video clips on this thing. And I want you guys to be able to take a look at that and, and actually see video of the giant squid underwater for the very first time. It's pretty impressive. Alright, so let's talk a little bit about the, the basic biology of the giant squid. They the genuses is Architeuthis which is used is based on the word that means king or ruler of the squid.

And the species part is pretty complex. People don't understand yet how many species there are. Which species are which. And so we're only going to use the genus. These animals are sexually dimorphic, with the females being larger than males and that these animals can reach the, the best specimens. The best scientific analysis of them suggests they reach about 13 meters for females, which is about 42 feet long. Or ten meters in males, which is about 32 feet long. So not quite the length that Richard Ellis described in his book. And when you exclude the tentacles, they're actually much shorter so the body can be only maybe five meters or so and and that you can see with the little scale here that illustrates that. They they can be quite massive up to 275 kilograms for females, which is over 600 pounds almost half that for males. They all have arms and tentacles that have suction cups on them that are lined with very tiny chitinous teeth that that allow them to grasp their prey. And that's a, a closeup of the end of one of the tentacles, and the club on the end of it that illustrates the position of of these suckers, and you can actually see them right here. These are the suckers that are found on the arms of these animals, okay? Alright, so let's talk a little bit more in detail about the body plan of the giant squid. So here the image on right describes the main features of the, of the animal. And you can see that they have bilateral symmetry, right? So they're the same on the left and the right hand side. They have, on one end they have a fin that facilitates and slows locomotion, and a mantle that actually houses the majority of their internal organs. So this is where their digestive tract is, and their respiratory organs. Everything is packed into this elongated mantle. Below that they have a very well-developed

head, here, with some of actually the largest eyes in the neck, in the animal kingdom for collecting light in a really deep dark ocean. In the head there's a beak that's central to all of the arms and tentacles that's used to tear apart pray. And below that is a siphon that the animal uses for jet propulsion, so it will squirt water out of that to be able to move very quickly. And and so that's the basic body plan for these animals. Two tentacles, and eight arms, for grasping their prey, which are the real sort of iconic things about the, the animal. Alright, so in terms of reproduction it's pretty interesting, when we, when you think about how animals find each other, solitary animals find each other in a deep, dark ocean. Sea animals do reproduce sexually. And, and this map at the top illustrates the distribution of all of the locations of, of places where people have actually found specimens of giant squid. So females will produce large numbers of very small eggs. You know, three to 0.3 to 0.7 millimeters, or much smaller than 0.3 inches wide. And and so they produce large numbers of those, and males have a single, testis and they have a prehensile penis that they use to actually transfer sperm to the female. And so they'll entangle the arms and tentacles of the female. And then actually transfer sperm to the female using a small package called a spermatophore. And the female would will use that spermatophore to fertilize her eggs which she then releases into the marine environment, where they drift in the current, hatch, and and eventually form new giant squid. Okay, so that's basic reproduction in giant squid. And, so giant squid in terms of their ecological relationships are both predators and prey. So it appears that they tend to be solitary hunters.

So they're not social in from what we know, and that comes primarily from the very limited evidence that we have. They're caught as single animals, and the only video evidence that hopefully you've been able to go and take a look at, at the Discovery site illustrates an animal that's by itself. They tend to eat other deep sea squid and fishes. and, and they, capture prey with their arms and tentacles, bring it to their central mouth, shred it with their beak, and use their radula, which is their tongue-like organ, tongue-like organ, which has teeth on it, to actually help shred up that food and swallow it. So that's giant squid as predators, but they're also prey. And so here the picture at the right describes that epic battle between sperm whale and giant squid. And we know that sperm whales forage on giant squid because sometimes they come back with scars. And and this image right here actually shows circular scars on the skin of sperm whale that are indicative of it being attacked and held or being, being held by the suckers of a giant squid. Okay, so we know that this happens. The other way we know it is that the beaks of the animals which is actually here so you can see the arms coming down to the central beak right here. The beaks of these animals are found in the stomachs of sperm whales when they die. And so illustrating that they actually do eat them. Okay, so that's how we know a little bit about both the predator and prey relationships of these animals. So a giant squid is big, but it actually has a bigger sister called the colossal squid. And and so the colossal squid is a little bit more massive. It might not necessarily always be longer, but it is definitely girthier. And the longest recorded specimen was captured in 2007 off of Antarctica and it was the it was weighed in at about 495 kilograms, so over

a thousand pounds, which is quite large. It it was at that specimen was initially estimated to be about ten meters in long, in length. But after it was measured it was only about 4.2 meters long because the tentacles has shrunk after it had died and after it was frozen. But really this is the largest of the squid, the largest squid that is swimming around in the ocean. Now the colossal squid. And, if you go to the New Zealand government website, to Papa they have an excellent colossal squid exhibit, and I would really encourage you guys to go and check that out. You can go and, see a lot of the anatomy and structure of these animals, in, in fine detail, because of the pictures that they have. And they also have some really interesting online exercises where you can build your own squid. So please go now and check out the colossal squid at this link right here. Okay? Alright, so that's it for the big sister, the colossal squid. And so in summary I want you guys to keep in mind that, that both the giant and colossal squid are deep ocean predators. And that the giant squid are probably more active giant predators than colossal squid. Giant squid arms and tentacles have suction cups that they use to grasp prey, whereas the colossal squid, they also have hooks, or they also have hooks on their arms that they use, and on the tentacles, that they use to capture prey. And that some of those hooks can actually swivel, which is really interesting. And finally when we're thinking about reproduction, these animals reproduce sexually with males passing females sperm using little packets called spermatophores, which is a common thing that happens in marine invertebrates, okay? So that's it. And I hope you liked the little

introduction to our giant and colossal squid. See you soon. [BLANK_AUDIO]