Wild 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 ?gMermen?h. 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?ft know about the squid, but the mystery of the

sea monsters will soon be solved.