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Large Squid Baffles, Amuses Scientists
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An enormous squid that grows 23 feet long and lives as deep as three miles under the ocean, has baffled scientists with what they call its strange looks and weird behavior.
The squid have been spotted all over the world -- in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans -- by undersea
explorers using specially designed craft.
``These are real mystery,'' said Michael Vecchione of the National Marine Fisheries Service and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. He describes the squid in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
``They behave strangely but they also look really weird,'' he said in an interview.
Vecchione, who put together observations from several scientists working in various countries, said no one has captured one of the
odd squid yet, so it has not been named.
But its un-squidlike demeanor has Vecchione and other biologists speaking in decidedly unscientific terms.
``This is well beyond a new species,'' he said. ``New species are a dime a dozen. This is fundamentally different.''
Vecchione said the squid do not act or look like other squid, which tend to be quick-moving and highly visual. Instead of having two arms
and eight tentacles, the new squid has 10 appendages that all look alike.
``The really long skinny arms are so much longer than the squid's body,'' he said. ``We don't know of any cephalopod that has arms
like that.''
The squid were found at very deep depths -- one at three miles under the ocean off the coast of Brazil, but most at between 6,000 and
10,000 feet.
Vecchione, who looked at video taken by both robotic deep-sea submersibles and a few taken by people aboard other submersibles,
said the squid did not move much at all.
``Whenever the submersible came up on one, it was in a characteristic posture, floating vertically in the water with the arms spread out,'' he said.
Texas A&M University oceanographer William Sager is one of the researchers who photographed the squid in the Gulf of Mexico
while exploring in the deep-diving ALVIN submersible.
``NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT''
``I had never seen anything like this creature,'' Sager told Science. ``It just hung there, looking at us, as if suddenly seeing ALVIN float up like a whale with lights was no big deal. We
photographed and videotaped it for five to ten minutes, and when we got to shore, we went looking for someone who could identify it.''
Vecchione said it is not surprising that the animals are strange -- anything living at that depth, with the huge pressures, cold and lack
of light, would look different from creatures found at shallower depths.
The skinny tentacles may not be used to grasp prey -- which is what most squid do with them -- but may be used like a net, instead, he said.
``I think those long extensions are really sticky,'' Vecchione guessed.
``One of the animals bumped into the submersible and got tangled up in it. The animal seemed to have a problem letting go. It might go around waiting for small prey like crustaceans to stumble into it and get stuck -- sort of like a living spider web.''
The squid -- which should not be confused with giant squid, which
are an identified species, may be the adult forms of some juveniles found in recent years, Vecchione said. These were named Magnapinnidae, which means ``big fins.''
``All the juveniles came from the Pacific and they came from much
closer to the surface -- 200 meters (650 feet) from the surface,''
Vecchione said.
``But it is not unusual for young to be near the surface and then go
deeper as they mature.''
Vecchione said the squid join an array of unusual creatures being
spotted for the first time as improved technology makes underwater exploration more common.
He hopes a program being started up by the Washington-based
Consortium on Research and Education to run a census of deep sea life will reveal more about the squid and other deep-sea creatures.
``I think there are a lot of really strange things down there,'' he
said. ``Every time someone goes down there and looks they find
something really strange. It's Eureka time.''