Fishermen Net Rare Cephalopod Specimen

tewl points to this Reuters article on Yahoo!, which explains briefly the capture of "a giant specimen of a strange, light-emitting, deep sea cephalopod" by Spanish fishermen. The article says "[t]he octopus-like creature, a taningia danae, weighs in at 275 pounds, measures seven feet and is easily the biggest of its type discovered." Not quite a coelacanth, maybe, but a 7-foot-long light-emitting sea-creature is something I'd like to see.

And Toronto COMPLAINS

[SigVn]

That the Don River is dead & nothing lives there....Your worried about what lives in your River.

People are just never happy

Big Ones

[SigVn]

this is stil WAY too small to account for the sucker marks on the sides of Whales, So theres bigger stuff out there yet.

I would not be in a hurry to catch it though.

Architeuthis dux

[dmatos]

Otherwise known as the giant squid. Reaches lengths of up to (we think) 20m. It is these creatures that we normally attribute those huge sucker marks to. Bits of giant squids have been found washed up on shore, in the bellies of whales, or in fishermans nets. Check out the Smithsonian Institutions page [si.edu] on this creature. What still eludes us is any observation of one of these creatures still alive, although there was a horrible horror movie made about it (and no, it didn't star Capt. Nemo).

Awesome!

[chaynes]

Makes me want to go fishing.

Re:Awesome!

[chaynes]

What did they hook in the Charles River in Boston?

Re:Awesome!

[tewl]

Me too, except I certainly hope I don't hook anything like that in the Charles River in Boston ;)

Re:Awesome!

[tewl]

Nothing, just stating the fact that it's one of the most polluted bodies of water in the Northeast that I certainly hope nothing like that is living in it! :)