NEW YORK TIMES, June 11, 1998
New York Meets Giant Squid
(Rare, Frozen and Just a Baby)
By William J. Broad
Forget Godzilla. A real sea monster arrived in Manhattan yesterday, slimy
and long, a colossus of the deep famous in lore and for centuries the stuff
of nightmares.
A giant squid, one of the rarest and least understood animals on the planet
was flown from New Zealand to Kennedy International Airport and then
trucked to the American Museum of Natural History on Central Park West the
beast had been frozen solid.
Late yesterday, museum scientists watched anxiously as the creature was
slowly revealed in its glory, its tentacles and body curled up in a cramped
packing case, its huge eyes hidden from sight. "It's tremendously
exciting," said Dr. Neil Landman, curator of invertebrates at the museum.
"'To have a look at a actual giant squid is a dream I've always had. It's
gorgeous."
Very little is known about them. The giants are believed to be one of
largest of all the world's creatures that have no backbones, growing to
lengths of 60 feet and perhaps much more. Giant squids have 10 large
tentacles lined with sucker pads and a reputation for ruthlessness. Their
huge eyes are apparently the largest in the animal kingdom, sometimes the
size of dinner plates.
Fishermen towing nets through the depths have snagged giant squids on
occasion and dead or dying ones have been known to wash ashore, often half
eaten by birds and sea life.
The museum's squid, though a baby, is 25 feet long. Caught in December by
fishermen in New Zealand, it is in an excellent state of preservation, and
is possibly the best giant squid specimen in existence, excited museum
officials said yesterday. Museum scientists plan to inject it with
preservatives as soon as it is sufficiently thawed.
The 25-foot baby joins the museum's 46-foot model of an adult giant squid,
which is featured in the new biodiversity hall. The museum plans to study
the squid carefully, and perhaps eventually to put it on public display,
which will depend partly on how well it survives the rigors of thawing.
Though the animal is immature the scientists say they should be able to
determine its sex.
Dr. Landman added that the giants were so poorly understood that the age of
the 25foot specimen was a total mystery.
"Is it 2 years old? Five years old? One hundred years old? Nobody knows.
And nobody knows the depth that these animals live at. I'm involved in a
project trying to answer these questions." It appears that creatures of the
deep typically live much longer than those on the planet's surface.=20
Richard Ellis, an author and sea life expert who helped arrange for the
squid's arrival, was bubbling with excitement yesterday. "It didn't come up
Broadway with squid flags flying, but it should have," he said half
seriously. This is the greatest event in New York City squid history."
"Very few people opportunity have had the opportunity to examine one of
these things," he went on. It's unknown. It's huge. And it's potentially
dangerous. So far, they haven't attacked anyone that we know of. It's all
very exciting."
Mr. Ellis is author of "The Search for the Giant Squid," to be published in
October by the Lyons Press in New York City. The book calls the giant
squid "the only living animal for which the term 'sea monster' is truly
applicable."
The museum's beast almost got away. In Los Angeles, after the flight from
New Zealand, the squid and its packing case proved too heavy for the
aircraft that was scheduled to take it the rest of the way. So it had to
wait. As a result, the squid landed late at Kennedy, in the afternoon
rather than the morning.
"We're really pleased that It got onto the next flight," said Dr. Landman,
the curator. "There were a lot of pins and needles." Among the
uncertainties was what might happen if the giant squid started to thaw or
emit a strong odor while passing through Customs.
As it turned out, the squid had to go through Customs twice, in both Los
Angeles and New York, delaying its arrival still further.
Steve O'Shea, a marine scientist at the National Institute of Water and
Atmospheric Research in Wellington, New Zealand, who accompanied the squid
on its flight, said the giant had been captured commercial fishermen and
frozen immediately. The baby, he added, was one of several recent catches.=
=20
Mr. O'Shea said the squid was a gift from the New Zealand agency to the
museum, which paid about $10,000 for its transportation. As the creature
left New Zealand, a Wellington headline read, "Squidzilla Takes on
Manhattan."
The giant squid is a staple of novels and horror movies. But for biologists
it is a mystery. No one has ever observed the beast in its natural
habitat, despite decades of probing the sea's dim recesses. Last year, a $5
million expedition to New Zealand failed to find one of the monsters.
Over the centuries the giant squid has clearly been the inspiration for
countless tales of ogres, including the kraken, legendary sea monsters off
Norway. In 1753, Erik Pontoppidan, Bishop of Bergen, a Norwegian port,
described an immense sea monster "full of arms" that was big enough to
crush the largest man-of-war.
Modern impressions began with Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,"
published in 1870. Drawing on reports of real life encounters, he depicted
the animal fairly accurately anatomically but fabricated its habitat,
describing it as living in deep caverns in the sides of submarine cliffs.
In the 20th century, sightings, captures and strandings revealed that the
giant squid was ubiquitous throughout the sea, though very reclusive.
Modern scientists have repeatedly tried to catch the beast and observe it
in its deep lair, using nets on long lines, submersibles equipped with
bright lights and lately, robots tied to long tethers=97always to no avail.
Only fishermen have made successful hauls, always by accident. But lacking
the ability or interest to preserve the huge specimens, fishermen typically
take a picture or two before throwing the carcass overboard, leaving
biologists to lament the lost treasure.
All that began to change in the last decade off New Zealand. Fishermen and
scientists there worked to develop a series of deep commercial fisheries,
going after exotic fish for the consumer market.=20
As the pace picked up, the fishermen began occasionally hauling up giant
squids that were apparently feeding on dense schools of fish at depths of
nearly a mile. A system of reporting was initiated so that Government
scientists in Wellington learned of the catches and often received body
parts or whole carcasses to study.
Recently, the run of landings has picked up and thrown the field into a
high state of excitement.
Mr. O'Shea, who is in charge of collecting giant squid data throughout New
Zealand waters, from both Government and commercial vessels, said yesterday
that the new specimens were in beautiful shape, most especially the one
acquired by the museum.
In the past, he said, dead animals have often been a shambles, hacked into
pieces by fishermen or so bruised and abraded that parts were=
unrecognizable.
"It's the best specimen that we've had," Mr. O'Shea said of the museum's
acquisition. "It's not the largest, but it's the best."
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