April 5, 2003
PAGING JULES VERNE:
Antarctic fishermen make discovery of colossal variety (The Edmonton Journal, April 04, 2003)Fishermen working in Antarctic waters have made an extremely rare catch -- a colossal squid with eyes as big as dinner plates and razor-sharp hooks on its tentacles, a marine researcher said Thursday.The 150-kilogram, five-metre-long specimen was caught in the Ross Sea, said Steve O'Shea, a research fellow with the Auckland University of Technology. He said the squid was a young female.
Going by the scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the animal is unrelated to the smaller and more common giant squid, O'Shea said.
"This animal is formidable," he told New Zealand's National Radio.
While the giant squid eats "quite small prey," the colossal squid eats large prey like the Patagonian toothfish, which can grow more than two metres long.
Early reports suggest that it tastes like chicken. Posted by Orrin Judd at April 5, 2003 1:54 PM
Ok...you have regular squid, giant squid, and now your colossal squid. And the next size up would be ...?
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at April 5, 2003 8:14 PMRoseanne Barr?
Posted by: oj at April 5, 2003 9:29 PMCall the ripe olive merchandisers.
One of the funniest things I ever read was a
sign put up in a saloon I used to frequent,
which was run by two forthright sisters, that
proposed labeling the sizes of condoms on
the ripe olive principle.