attempts to capture a giant squid in 1861
Aristotle, who lived in the fourth century BC, described a large squid, which he called
teuthus, distinguishing it from the smaller squid, the
teuthis. He mentions, "of the calamaries, the so-called
teuthus is much bigger than the
teuthis; for
teuthi [plural of
teuthus] have been found as much as five
ells [] long".
Pliny the Elder, living in the first century AD, also described a gigantic squid in his
Natural History, with the head "as big as a cask", arms long, and carcass weighing . Tales of giant squid have been common among mariners since ancient times, and may have led to the
Norse legend of the
kraken, a tentacled
sea monster as large as an island capable of engulfing and sinking any ship.
Japetus Steenstrup, the describer of
Architeuthis, suggested a giant squid was the species described as a
sea monk to the
Danish king Christian III circa 1550. The
Lusca of the
Caribbean and
Scylla in
Greek mythology may also derive from giant squid sightings. Eyewitness accounts of other sea monsters like the
sea serpent are also thought to be mistaken interpretations of giant squid. Nevertheless, the historian , who has studied the past interactions between humans and giant squid, has pointed out that many old stories about sea monsters were not associated with giant squid until the late 19th century. Latva has proposed that the giant squid was
monsterized in the 19th century by natural historians and other writers. Regarding seafarers' relationship with giant squid, he explains it as being pragmatic: they did not perceive giant squid as monsters, but as sea animals that could be utilized in various ways. Steenstrup wrote a number of papers on giant squid in the 1850s. He first used the term
"Architeuthus" (this was the spelling he chose) in a paper in 1857. A portion of a giant squid was secured by the French
corvette Alecton in 1861, leading to wider recognition of the genus in the scientific community. From 1870 to 1880, many squid were stranded on the shores of Newfoundland. For example, a specimen washed ashore in
Thimble Tickle Bay, Newfoundland, on 2 November 1878; its mantle was reported to be long, with one tentacle long, and it was estimated as weighing . Many of these specimens were not preserved, often being processed into manure or animal feed. The find of such a large, complete specimen is very rare, as most specimens are in a poor condition, having washed up dead on beaches or been retrieved from the stomachs of dead sperm whales. Researchers undertook a painstaking process to preserve the body. It was transported to England on ice aboard a trawler, then defrosted, which took about four days. The major difficulty was that thawing the thick mantle took much longer than the tentacles. To prevent the tentacles from
rotting, scientists covered them in ice packs, and bathed the mantle in water. Then they injected the squid with a formol-saline solution to prevent rotting. It is now on show in a glass tank at the Darwin Centre of the
Natural History Museum. from 2005 and displayed on 26 March 2008 in the
Grande galerie de l'Évolution of the
National Museum of Natural History in Paris. In December 2005, the
Melbourne Aquarium in Australia paid A$100,000 for the intact body of a giant squid, preserved in a giant block of ice, which had been caught by fishermen off the coast of New Zealand's
South Island that year. and new ones are reported each year. Around 30 of these specimens are exhibited at museums and aquaria worldwide. The search for a live
Architeuthis specimen includes attempts to find live young, including larvae. The larvae closely resemble those of
Nototodarus and
Onykia, but are distinguished by the shape of the mantle attachment to the head, the tentacle suckers, and the beaks.
Images and video of live animals By the turn of the 21st century, the giant squid remained one of the few extant
megafauna to have never been photographed alive, either in the wild or in captivity. Marine biologist and author
Richard Ellis described it as "the most elusive image in natural history". However, the animal in this photograph was a sick or dying
Onykia robusta, not a giant squid.
First images of live adult The first image of a live mature giant squid was taken on 15 January 2002, on Goshiki beach,
Amino Cho,
Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. The animal, which measured about in
mantle length and in total length, The specimen was identified by Koutarou Tsuchiya of the
Tokyo University of Fisheries. It is on display at the
National Science Museum of Japan.
First observations in the wild The first photographs of a live giant squid in its natural habitat were taken on 30 September 2004, by
Tsunemi Kubodera (
National Science Museum of Japan) and
Kyoichi Mori (
Ogasawara Whale Watching Association). The footage aired a year later on a
History Channel program,
MonsterQuest: Giant Squid Found. In July 2012, a crew from television networks
NHK and
Discovery Channel captured what was described as "the first-ever footage of a live giant squid in its natural habitat". The footage was revealed on a on 13 January 2013, and was shown on Discovery Channel's show
Monster Squid: The Giant Is Real on 27 January 2013, and on
Giant Squid: Filming the Impossible – Natural World Special on
BBC Two. To capture the footage the team aboard OceanX's vessel
MV Alucia traveled to the Ogasawara Islands, south of Tokyo and utilized the ship's crewed submersibles. The squid was about long and was missing its feeding tentacles, likely from a failed attack by a
sperm whale. It was drawn into viewing range by both artificial
bioluminescence created to mimic panicking
Atolla jellyfish and by using a
Thysanoteuthis rhombus (diamond squid) as bait. The giant squid was filmed feeding for about 23 minutes by
Tsunemi Kubodera until it departed. The technique of using unobtrusive viewing and bioluminescence luring of the squid with quiet unobtrusive platforms was described by
Edith Widder, a member of the expedition.
Second video of giant squid in natural habitat On 19 June 2019, in an expedition run by the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Association (
NOAA), known as the Journey into Midnight, biologists
Nathan J. Robinson and
Edith Widder captured a video of a juvenile giant squid at a depth of in the Gulf of Mexico. Michael Vecchione, a NOAA Fisheries zoologist, confirmed that the captured footage was that of the genus
Architeuthis, and that the individual filmed measured at somewhere between .
Other sightings Videos of live giant squids have been occasionally captured near the surface since the 2012 sighting, with one of these aforementioned individuals being guided back into the open ocean after appearing in Toyama Harbor on 24 December 2015. The majority of these sightings were of sick or dying individuals that had come up to the surface. == Aquarium keeping ==