Squid Essay, Research Paper

Squid are wild and wonderful. They are believed to be remarkably intelligent

because of their apparently complex communication system. They include the

Vampire Squid, and the elusive and mysterious Giant Squid. I researched the

Giant Squid which is the biggest animals in the sea. The giant squid lives in

most of the world`s oceans and is among the biggest animals in the sea but it is

rarely seen. It hunts smaller sea creatures but larger animals feed on it. It

has inspired fantastic tales but the facts are even more fascinating than the

ficiton. For over 2,000 years the giant squid has inspired fear, fascination,

and fantastis stories. Encounters with this huge invertebrate have always been

rare and distant. And only recently has there been scientific evidence to

dispute the legends. Centuries ago, people invented explanations for what their

astonished eyes saw. In 1500`s, when several large unfamiliar sea creatures were

stranded in Norway, people decided they were “Mermen”. A merman is a giant

squid. Until the 1880`s , the giant squid was thought to be a legend. But in

1888, a giant squid 57 feet long washed ashore on a New Zealand beach. It had

tentacles 35 feet long, and its eyes were each larger than a dinner plate. (It

is amazing!) One captured sperm whale regurgitated two 42 foot long tentacles in

an aquarium, meaning the squid they came from was roughly 66 feet long, and

weighed 85,000 pounds. Scientists do not know exactly where in the sea it lives,

they have not been to study it alive. The giant squid can be up to 18m (59 ft),

and their weight can be up to 900kg (1980lb,nearly 1ton). In addition, They were

caught everywhere in the world, especially in the North of Atlantic. Scientists

suspect giant squid live mostly at depth of 200 to 700, One of the giant squid

found stranded on U.S. shores where in Washed ashore on Plum Island,

Massachusetts, in 1980. It was the only third giant squid that they found

stranded in U.S. shores. The total of specimen was 2.7m ( 9 ft) and the weight

was 200 kg (440 lb).The giant squid eat mainly fishes and other squids, based on

scientific analysis of the stomach contents of two giant specimens. Giant,

menacing sea monsters have been written about for centuries. Sailors have told

fantastic stories of being attacked by monsters with enormous flailing tentacles

and huge, black menacing eyes . These stories probably originated from sightings

of the largest marine invertebrate which is the giant squid. The giant squid

have the ability to jet propel themselves through the water at 20 miles per

hour, faster than most sailing ships of the past. As squid can also launch

itself out of the water while moving at high speed , appearing to fly, which

would be pretty unnerving to superstitious sailors on a whaling ship. In

recently, a scientific expedition was launched to search the deepest oceans of

the world for the elusive giant squid. Deep water manned and unmanned submarines

will be used to try to find out more about the huge invertebrates. Perhaps there

are still many things that we don’t know about the squid, but the mystery of

the sea monsters will soon be solved.