Friday Squid Blogging: Lego Squid
Actually, it looks kind of dorky.
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Actually, it looks kind of dorky.
It contains high levels of arsenic.
Pity, I kind of like squid jerky.
Amazing video of squid giving birth.
Seems like there’s some hysteria in the making:
They are deadly, huge and fast moving. Their tentacles can suck the life out of a human being and they’ve arrived in Northern California.
The whole article is like that.
Interesting challenges:
“It’s got to be thawed out slowly. You can’t put hot water on it, you’ve just got to thaw it out naturally,” says Te Papa’s mollsuca collections manager Bruce Marshall.
To minimise handling of the precious specimen, the colossal squid will probably have its temperature raised, over days, in the tank in which it will finally be “fixed”.
“We don’t want to move it too much,” says Marshall.
“When a thing like that is in the water, it’s neutrally buoyant.
“But, of course, when you get it out of the water, you’ve got a big lump of weight and you could try lifting it and your hands would go right through.
“Already it’s got puncture marks from the net.”
Once un-frozen, the creature will be fixed, or embalmed, and then a long-term preservative will be used.
“What I mean by a fixing tank is a tank that you lay it out in, in a natural position, and you then make all the adjustments—align all the arms, pack out the body and all of that. Then you have it in a, say, 5% formalin solution.
“It will require the biggest tank of anything we’ve got.”
In further news, it might be microwaved. It’s actually a hard problem; how do you ensure that the defrosted parts don’t rot while waiting for the rest of it to defrost.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.