The largest squid in the world: description, history and interesting facts. What does a sperm whale eat? Habitat of huge mollusks

Architeuthis is a genus of huge oceanic squid, reaching up to 18 meters in length. The greatest length of the mantle is 2 m, and the tentacles are up to 5 m. The largest specimen was found in 1887 on the coast of New Zealand - its length was 17.4 meters. The krakens that live in the area of Bermuda are considered real giants. They can reach a length of up to 20 meters, and at the very bottom hide monsters up to 50 meters long. Their targets are sperm whales and whales.

Giant squid can be found in subtropical and temperate zones Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. They live in the water column, and they can be found both a few meters from the surface and at a depth of one kilometer.

If we talk about squid caught in our time, we can talk about a specimen that was caught by fishermen in the Antarctic region in 2007 (see the first photo). Scientists wanted to examine it, but could not - at that time there was no suitable equipment, so they decided to freeze the giant until better times. As for the dimensions, they are as follows: body length - 9 meters, and weight - 495 kilograms. This is the so-called colossal squid or Mesonychoteuthis.

And this is possible, a photograph of yourself big squid in the world:

Even ancient sailors told terrible stories in sailor taverns about the attack of monsters that emerged from the abyss and sank entire ships, entangling them with their tentacles. They were called krakens. They became legends. Their existence was viewed rather skeptically. But even Aristotle described a meeting with the “great Teuthys”, from which travelers who plied the waters suffered Mediterranean Sea. Where does reality end and truth begin?

Homer was the first to describe the kraken in his tales. Scylla, whom Odysseus met in his wanderings, is nothing more than a giant kraken. The Gorgon Medusa borrowed tentacles from the monster, which over time transformed into snakes. And, of course, the Hydra, defeated by Hercules, is a distant “relative” of this mysterious creature. On the frescoes of Greek temples you can find images of creatures that wrap their tentacles around entire ships.

Soon the myth took on flesh. People met a mythical monster. This happened in the west of Ireland, when in 1673 a storm washed up on the seashore a creature the size of a horse, with eyes like dishes and many appendages. He had a huge beak, like an eagle's. Remains of the Kraken for a long time were an exhibit that was shown to everyone for big money in Dublin.

Carl Linnaeus, in his famous classification, assigned them to the order of mollusks, calling them Sepia microcosmos. Subsequently, zoologists systematized everything known information and were able to give a description of this species. In 1802, Denis de Montfort published the book “General and Particular Natural History of Mollusks,” which subsequently inspired many adventurers to capture the mysterious deep-seated animal.

The year was 1861, and the steamer Dlekton was making a routine voyage across the Atlantic. Suddenly a giant squid appeared on the horizon. The captain decided to harpoon him. And they were even able to drive several sharp lances into solid kraken. But three hours of struggle were in vain. The mollusk sank to the bottom, almost dragging the ship with it. At the ends of the harpoons there were scraps of meat weighing a total of 20 kilograms. The ship's artist managed to sketch the struggle between man and animal, and this drawing is still kept in the French Academy of Sciences.

A second attempt to capture the kraken alive was made ten years later, when it ended up in a fishing net near Newfoundland. People fought for ten hours with the stubborn and freedom-loving animal. They were able to pull him ashore. The ten-meter carcass was examined by the famous naturalist Harvey, who preserved the kraken in salt water and the exhibit delighted visitors to the London History Museum for many years.

Ten years later, on the other side of the earth, in New Zealand, fishermen were able to catch a twenty-meter clam weighing 200 kilograms. The most recent discovery was a kraken found in the Falkland Islands. It was “only” 8 meters long and is still kept at the Darwin Center in the UK capital.

What is he like? This animal has a cylindrical head, several meters in length. Its body changes color from dark green to crimson-red (depending on the animal’s mood). Krakens have the largest eyes in the animal world. They can be up to 25 centimeters in diameter. In the center of the “head” is the beak. This is a chitinous formation that the animal uses to grind fish and other food. He can eat them too steel cable 8 centimeters thick. The kraken's tongue has a curious structure. It is covered with small teeth that have different shapes, allow you to grind food and push it into the esophagus.

A meeting with a kraken does not always end in victory for people. In March 2011, a squid attacked fishermen in the Sea of Cortez. In front of people vacationing at the Loreto resort, a huge octopus sank a 12-meter ship. The fishing boat was sailing parallel to the coastline when suddenly several dozen thick tentacles emerged from the water towards it. They wrapped themselves around the sailors and threw them overboard. Then the monster began to rock the ship until it capsized.

According to an eyewitness: “I saw four or five bodies washed ashore by the surf. Their bodies were almost completely covered with blue spots - from suckers sea monsters. One was still alive. But he hardly resembled a person. The squid literally chewed him up!”

According to zoologists, it was a carnivorous Humboldt squid that lives in these waters. And he was not alone. The flock attacked the ship deliberately, acted harmoniously and consisted mainly of females. There are fewer and fewer fish in these waters and the krakens need to look for food. The fact that they reached people is an alarming sign.

Below, in the cold and dark depths of the Pacific Ocean, lives a very smart and cautious creature. There are legends all over the world about this truly unearthly creature. But this monster is real.

This is the giant squid or Humboldt squid. It received its name in honor of the Humboldt Current, where it was first discovered. This is a cold current washing the shores South America, but the habitat of this creature is much larger. It extends from Chile north to Central California through Pacific Ocean. Giant squids patrol the depths of the ocean, conducting most of of his life at a depth of up to 700 meters. Therefore, very little is known about their behavior.

They can reach the height of an adult. Their size can exceed 2 meters. Without any warning, they emerge from the darkness in groups and feed on fish on the surface. Like their octopus relative, giant squids can change their color by opening and closing pigment-filled sacs in their skin called chromatophores. By quickly closing these chromatophores, they turn white. Perhaps this is necessary to distract the attention of other predators, or perhaps it is a form of communication. And if something alarms them or they behave aggressively, then their color turns red.

Fishermen who cast their lines and try to catch these giants off the coast of Central America call them red devils. These same fishermen talk about how squid pulled people overboard and ate them. The squid's behavior does nothing to alleviate these fears. Lightning-fast tentacles armed with spiny suckers grab the victim's flesh and drag him towards a waiting mouth. There the sharp beak breaks and shreds the food. Red Devil Apparently giant squids eat everything they can catch, even their own kind. As desperate measures To defend itself, the weaker squid shoots an ink cloud from a pouch next to its head. This dark pigment is designed to hide and confuse enemies.

Few people have had the opportunity or the courage to approach a giant squid in the water. But one wildlife film director went into the dark to film this unique footage. The squid quickly surrounds him, first showing curiosity and then aggression. The tentacles have grabbed his mask and regulator and this is fraught with the cessation of air. It will be able to restrain the squid and return to the surface if it also shows aggression and behaves like a predator. This short meeting gave some insight into intelligence, strength and

But the real giants are the krakens that live in the Bermuda area. They can reach a length of up to 20 meters, and at the very bottom hide monsters up to 50 meters long. Their targets are sperm whales and whales.

This is how the Englishman Wullen described one such fight: “At first it was like the eruption of an underwater volcano. Looking through binoculars, I was convinced that neither the volcano nor the earthquake had anything to do with what was happening in the ocean. But the forces at work there were so enormous that I can be excused for my first guess: a very large sperm whale was locked in mortal combat with a giant squid almost as big as itself. It seemed as if the endless tentacles of the mollusk had entangled the entire body of the enemy in a continuous net. Even next to the ominously black head of a sperm whale, the squid's head seemed such a terrible object that one would not always dream of it even in a nightmare. Huge and bulging eyes against the deathly pale background of the squid’s body made it look like a monstrous ghost.”

The Kraken is great and terrible. The largest squid in the world November 13th, 2013

There is the so-called Architeuthis - a genus of huge oceanic squid, whose length reaches 18 meters in length. The greatest length of the mantle is 2 m, and the tentacles are up to 5 m. The largest specimen was found in 1887 on the coast of New Zealand - its length was 17.4 meters. Unfortunately, nothing is said about weight.

Giant squid can be found in the subtropical and temperate zones of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans. They live in the water column, and they can be found both a few meters from the surface and at a depth of one kilometer.

No one is capable of attacking this animal except one, namely the sperm whale. At one time it was believed that a terrible battle was being fought between these two, the outcome of which remained unknown to the last. But, as recent studies have shown, architeuthis loses in 99% of cases, since power is always on the side of the sperm whale.

And this is possibly a photograph of the largest squid in the world:

Even ancient sailors told stories in sailor taverns horror stories about the attack of monsters that emerged from the abyss and sank entire ships, entangling them with their tentacles. They were called krakens. They became legends. Their existence was viewed rather skeptically. But even Aristotle described a meeting with the “great teuthys”, from which travelers plowed the waters of the Mediterranean Sea suffered. Where does reality end and truth begin?

Homer was the first to describe the kraken in his tales. Scylla, about whom Odysseus met in his wanderings, is nothing more than giant kraken. The Gorgon Medusa borrowed tentacles from the monster, which over time transformed into snakes. And, of course, the Hydra, defeated by Hercules, is a distant “relative” of this mysterious creature. On the frescoes of Greek temples you can find images of creatures that wrap their tentacles around entire ships.

Soon the myth took on flesh. People met a mythical monster. This happened in the west of Ireland, when in 1673 a storm washed up on the seashore a creature the size of a horse, with eyes like dishes and many appendages. He had a huge beak, like an eagle's. The remains of the kraken have long been an exhibit that was shown to everyone for big money in Dublin.

Carl Linnaeus, in his famous classification, assigned them to the order of mollusks, calling them Sepia microcosmos. Subsequently, zoologists systematized all known information and were able to give a description of this species. In 1802, Denis de Montfort published the book “General and Particular Natural History of Mollusks,” which subsequently inspired many adventurers to capture the mysterious deep-seated animal.

The year was 1861, and the steamer Dlekton was making a routine voyage across the Atlantic. Suddenly a giant squid appeared on the horizon. The captain decided to harpoon him. And they were even able to drive several sharp spears into the solid body of the kraken. But three hours of struggle were in vain. The mollusk sank to the bottom, almost dragging the ship with it. At the ends of the harpoons there were scraps of meat weighing a total of 20 kilograms. The ship's artist managed to sketch the struggle between man and animal, and this drawing is still kept in the French Academy of Sciences.

What is he like? This animal has a cylindrical head, several meters in length. Its body changes color from dark green to crimson-red (depending on the animal’s mood). Krakens have the largest eyes in the animal world. They can be up to 25 centimeters in diameter. In the center of the “head” is the beak. This is a chitinous formation that the animal uses to grind fish and other food. With it, he is able to bite through a steel cable 8 centimeters thick. The kraken's tongue has a curious structure. It is covered with small teeth, which have different shapes, allowing you to grind food and push it into the esophagus.

A meeting with a kraken does not always end in victory for people. Like this incredible story wanders on the Internet: in March 2011, a squid attacked fishermen in the Sea of Cortez. In front of people vacationing at the Loreto resort, a huge octopus sank a 12-meter ship. The fishing boat was walking parallel to the coastline when suddenly several dozen thick tentacles emerged from the water towards it. They wrapped themselves around the sailors and threw them overboard. Then the monster began to rock the ship until it capsized.

According to an eyewitness: “I saw four or five bodies washed ashore by the surf. Their bodies were almost completely covered blue spots- from the suckers of sea monsters. One was still alive. But he hardly resembled a person. The squid literally chewed him up!”

This is photoshop. The original photo is in the comments.

This is the giant squid or Humboldt squid. It received its name in honor of the Humboldt Current, where it was first discovered. This is a cold current that washes the shores of South America, but the habitat of this creature is much larger. It extends from Chile north to Central California across the Pacific Ocean. Giant squids patrol the depths of the ocean, spending most of their lives at depths of up to 700 meters. Therefore, very little is known about their behavior.

Fishermen who cast their lines and try to catch these giants off the coast of Central America call them red devils. These same fishermen talk about how squids pulled people overboard and ate them. The squid's behavior does nothing to alleviate these fears. Lightning-fast tentacles armed with spiny suckers grab the victim's flesh and drag him towards a waiting mouth. There the sharp beak breaks and shreds the food. Red Devil Apparently giant squids eat everything they can catch, even their own kind. As a desperate measure of defense, the weaker squid shoots an ink cloud from a sac near its head. This dark pigment is designed to hide and confuse enemies.

The original article is on the website InfoGlaz.rf Link to the article from which this copy was made -

Like all toothed whales, sperm whales are predators. The diet of these animals is based on cephalopods (squid, octopus) and fish. An adult sperm whale needs about 1 ton of cephalopods per day (about 3% of body weight).

Sperm whale menu

The main food of the spermaceti whale consists of bathypelagic species cephalopods that live in the water column below the surface layer. Today, about 40 species of mollusks are known, constituting more than 90% of the total food mass of sperm whales. Whales dive deep in search of food. Sea giants They catch prey at a depth of at least 500 m, where they have practically no food competitors. A hunting session lasts about 1 hour, but the technology for catching shellfish is not exactly known. Scientists suggest that ultrasonic echolocation (sonar) is used to search for food. High-frequency sounds disorient the mollusks in space, and they become easy prey for whales. Sperm whales do not consume cuttlefish that live close to the surface of the water.

Interesting fact

Sperm whales eat giant squid more than 10 m long. In defense, monstrous mollusks leave traces of their suckers on the heads of whales. The depressed circles sometimes reach a diameter of 20 cm.

Spermaceti whales prefer to feed near the edge of the continental shelf. In these places, deep ocean currents bring to the surface a huge amount of different living creatures - octopuses, fish, crustaceans.

Fish takes second place in the diet of whales and makes up only 5% of total mass food that sperm whales eat. More than 50 species of fish were found in the stomachs of these mammals. It is known that whales prefer to eat perches, stingrays, greenlings, and salmon gobies. The diet of sperm whales also includes small sharks, saury, and pollock.

At great depths, the largest cetaceans also pick up rocks that are resistant to acids. They are not destroyed by gastric juice and serve as millstones for mechanical grinding of eaten food.

Thanks to this menu, the odorous substance ambergris is formed in the intestines of sperm whales - the most valuable product in perfumery.

Many people think that the largest animal on the planet is the elephant, but this is not entirely true. The elephant is the most great representative animals on land, but in the water another creature can compete with it, and its name is whale. In fact, a whale is not a fish, but a mammal. Moreover, it breathes air, like land animals, and therefore cannot remain under water all the time, and occasionally the whale needs to surface to get more oxygen into its lungs. And one of the largest whales is the sperm whale.

Like all mammals, whales are born fully formed individuals. As you grow older baby whale being fed milk, which, by the way, is much more nutritious than cow's, and, accordingly, helps whales reach large sizes. The disadvantage of sperm whales is that when they appear on land, they are practically helpless, and most cases when a whale washes up on the shore end very badly.

The sperm whale is truly the king and ruler of the seas. Due to its huge size it the animal has practically no enemies, with the exception of man. The size of a sperm whale ranges from 20 to 22 meters in length; in comparison, 18 elephants can easily fit on the back of such a handsome creature. That is why many are interested in the question of what the sperm whale eats.

Toothed whales

Toothed whales are one of the most common species of whales on the planet. They are basically small mammals that feed exclusively on other living things, simply put, they are carnivores. These mammals are small in size, with the exception of the sperm whale, which almost the same size as the largest one blue whale . The word "sperm whale" comes from Portuguese language and means "big head". The sperm whale is the only representative of its species and actually has a very large head. They have the following features:

They live mainly in herds of 80–100 animals and are considered very collective animals.
In and under water, sperm whales reach speeds of about 50 km/h.
Although the sperm whale breathes with its lungs, it can dive to a depth of up to 3000 km, this opportunity is given to it by its subcutaneous fat saving a toothed whale from the cold or high pressure. This animal dives to such depths to treat itself to its favorite delicacy - giant squid.

Sperm whale nutrition

Everyday nutrition consists of different products:

various shellfish;
octopuses;
Favorite dish: giant squid.

Squid is the easiest food for a whale to eat, since the size of the prey is usually at least 15 meters in length. Also these whales eat fish, but not often, only in the case when you don’t really have to choose. As a percentage, about 5% will come from fish consumption.

You need to understand that the sperm whales, photos of which are presented in the article, dive very deep for a reason. They are not interested in food floating on the surface, e.g. the whale will not even chase the squids located above, and go down after them to a depth of at least 500 meters. This behavior is caused by the fact that there are many competitors at the top, and the sperm whale is not used to chasing food and sharing it with someone.

Hunting

Sperm whales use ultrasonic echolocation to find food. Conditioned this type hunting because the sound emitted by the whale causes the giant clams to go crazy. The spermaceti sac works as an acoustic lens here, which helps the whale detect prey. Let's return to the sperm whale's favorite delicacy - giant squid.

To swallow the treasured prey, the whale will have to try hard, namely fight with a huge opponent. Sperm whales and squids are almost equal in length, and very often in a fight one will definitely kill the other. The body is usually left with huge scars from the squid's tentacles. It is because of them that many animals swim with huge dents or cuts on their faces.

There is a known case when an almost dead squid was taken out of the stomach of a sperm whale. He grabbed the sperm whale with his tentacles and got stuck in his throat in this position. By the way, the weight of this opponent was almost 200 kilograms.

Sperm whales are huge carnivorous whales

Reproduction

Just like in humans, female sperm whales mature earlier than males by exactly 1 year, namely, at 4 years they are ready to reproduce. It often happens that the male can stay away from the female for a long time and appear nearby only at the moment of mating. Males are polygamous and behind each such whale there can be up to 15 females. The baby whale is gestated for about 18 months, and females can usually give birth at any time of the year, with the exception of representatives northern hemisphere who give birth in June - September. A baby whale is born weighing about 1 ton, and almost immediately begins to be suckled by the female.

History of origin

According to the theory, more than 70–75 million years ago, the ancestors of modern sperm whales lived on land. Their body was covered with fur, and instead of today's fins, they had ordinary limbs. Gradually animals moved closer to the water, where they escaped from large quantity predators and other animals. Then they finally moved into the water, where they changed in size, got rid of their fur and became similar to modern whales.

In connection with active fighter activity in the 18th–19th centuries. whales became an endangered species, and soon a moratorium on their hunting was introduced, which prevents them from being caught for any purpose. However, they are still at risk from being hit by passing ships, being contaminated by oil refineries, or being washed ashore.

Giant squid(Architeuthis lat.) – belongs to the genus deep sea squid. The length of the largest squid is approximately 16.5 m, the weight of this mollusk can reach 1 ton. There is information about giant squids 20 m long, but such data do not have documentary evidence.

The study of these mollusks began in 1856, when the scientist J. Steenstrup undertook to examine the beak of a giant squid that washed ashore. Comparing it with the size of ordinary squid, he came to the conclusion that the size of this mollusk is simply enormous. Later, body parts of giant squid were found inside sperm whales, scars and large burns measuring 10 cm left by the squid's tentacles on the body of the whales indicated that it was incredibly large sizes and aroused more and more interest among ordinary people and scientists.

Photo: This squid has already been caught.
A miracle happened in 2004, when the first photos and videos of these giant squids were taken. And in 2006, researchers managed to catch this mysterious animal, whose length was 7 meters. Like other types of squid, this one also has a mantle and 10 tentacles, two of which are hunting, and the rest are ordinary.

Photo: Study of a giant squid.
The main enemies of giant squids are considered to be sperm whales, the reason for this is not fully known, but it is assumed that sperm whales attack first, because they feed on squids.

Photo: sperm whale versus giant squid.
The study of these giant creatures does not stop, so many things related to their existence remain a mystery.

Video: giant squid.

Elusive giant squid caught on video

Sperm Whale vs Colossal Squid

The largest squid on earth was spotted by scientists 03/21/2013

Video: Giant squid caught on video off the coast of Japan