Friday Squid Blogging: Whale Eating Giant Squid

“We looked hard and saw a tentacle of a squid hanging from its mouth and there were other pieces of squid stuck to the whale’s body. It made a number of brusque movements on its side in the water to free the tentacle to eat it – and there we were filming and photographing it all.”

He reckoned the squid could have been some five metres long, a comparatively modest size for the species. Examples have been found which reach 20 metres in length and weigh in at a thousand kilos!

Tags: squid

Posted on September 21, 2007 at 4:05 PM • 9 Comments

Comments

jkohen • September 21, 2007 4:50 PM

It would be interesting to give these whales some sort of high-sensitivity cameras or other image recording device that would work in the dark, deep waters so they can bring us live footage of their hunting immersions.

Lolsquid • September 21, 2007 5:22 PM

“I’m in ur sea, eatin ur whalez!”

Terry Cloth • September 21, 2007 5:26 PM

Pooh. It’s only a pilot whale—I was expecting a sperm whale.*

Nonetheless, this is Really Cool ™. A strong, if circumstantial, hypothesis gets about the best evidence possible.

I have to admit my ignorance came into play here. I’d always thought of pilot whales as a sort of overgrown dolphin, hanging out near the surface. I had no idea that they can get down to 1.2 km, and can stay down for over 20 minutes. (The article says they can “only” stay down 22 mins. Such a letdown.)

Terry Cloth • September 21, 2007 5:31 PM

Oops—insufficient fact checking. The article says “… staying down for no more than 22 minutes at a time.” Sounds dismissive to me, but `only’ isn’t in there.

Wicked Lad • September 21, 2007 8:36 PM

Aw, man! Where’s the video? :o(

Bruce Schneier • September 22, 2007 1:46 AM

“Aw, man! Where’s the video?”

I know. I looked all over the Internet for it.

betabug • September 22, 2007 3:37 AM