i just watched this discovery channel show on the killer humboldt squid. who knew that there was such a thing? apparently it attacks people. you may think that squid are harmless, as did i, but this particular species has suckers with sharp teeth, up to 36000 teeth!! they are carnivorous and move in schools. they can swim up to 15 miles an hour and they hunt in packs to kill prey that are larger than themselves. although their jaws (beak) are not strong, several squid can quickly kill and devour their food. crazy! they can grow up to 7 ft and weight 100 pounds!! they change colors like most squid from white to red. they are called the humboldt squid because they are found in the humboldt current of the eastern pacific ocean. they are generally found in waters off mexico and california but also have washed up onto shores farther north. after seeing this program i realized i may have seen one before. here is a picture from wikipedia:
here is a picture i took of squid that washed up onto the shores of manzanita beach on the oregon coast. it was certainly an odd sight, there were probably a couple dozen all washed up dead, mostly picked at by birds. i didn't take the chance to look at them closer to see the teeth in suckers because of course i didn't know about them at the time. so of course i have no way to know if these were the killer squid.
what do you think? pretty darn similar looking. of course the one in my picture has shorter tentacle legs but other than that, same general shape and color with similar characteristics. man i love the discovery channel!
1 comment:
discovery channel rocks... that definately looks like the same squid, what do they call it, "devil of the sea" or something like that? yeah, i saw it too, crazy huh? the ocean is dangerous, did you see that show about that tiny jellyfish in australia? that one had a funny name, iroquanda or something like that, i'm sure that's not it but something like that...
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