For years, people had been looking for the giant squid. What would it take to find one alive?
Learning Objective: Children will discuss how scientists learned about a giant squid.
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It was about 150 years ago. A fisherman was sailing in his boat. He saw something in the water. He sailed over and poked it with a hook.
Suddenly, the thing rose out of the ocean. Its long arms slapped at the water. A giant tentacle landed across the boat.
The fisherman was scared. He grabbed an ax. He cut off the tentacle! The huge creature slipped back into the water.
The fisherman was left with the tentacle. He was also left with a question: What was that thing?
Scary Stories
North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo
People told stories about the kraken.
For thousands of years, sailors have told stories about giant sea creatures. One of the creatures was called the kraken. It was supposed to have giant arms. Sailors said it grabbed boats. For a long time, scientists wondered if these stories were true.
That all changed when the fisherman chopped off the giant tentacle.
A Real Big Squid
The fisherman went back to shore. He showed the tentacle to scientists.
The scientists guessed that it belonged to a kind of squid. Squid are ocean animals. They have eight arms and two tentacles. Their bodies are soft. Most squid are not very big. They are not hard to find in the ocean.
But this tentacle was 19 feet long. It could stretch almost to the top of a two-story building! This squid had to be a giant.
Learning More
Adéle Grosse
Sometimes dead giant squid wash up on beaches.
Over time, scientists learned more about giant squid. They studied dead ones that washed up on beaches. They learned that giant squid can be as long as a school bus. These squid have eyes the size of basketballs.
But giant squid live in the deepest part of the ocean. People could not go that deep to find them. Would scientists ever see a living giant squid?
A New Way to Search
At last, in the 1960s, people invented new submarines. Now scientists could go deep into the sea. Teams of scientists used the submarines to search for giant squid. But they couldn’t find any.
Finally, in 2004, a team of scientists had an idea. They knew that some whales eat giant squid. What if they followed those whales? Maybe they would find a giant squid.
The scientists took a boat out into the ocean. They stopped in spots where they had seen the whales diving. Then they dropped a camera on a hook down into the ocean. They also dropped a bag of smelly shrimp down. It would be bait. Would a giant squid come up to take a bite? Then the camera could snap a photo.
The scientists tried this for three years. But there were no photos of giant squid.
The Squid at Last!
wildestanimal/Getty Images
People took this photo of a giant squid in 2018.
Then one day, that changed. Something big swam up to the camera. It was as long as a school bus. Its eyes were the size of basketballs! The camera snapped more than 500 images. The scientists cheered.
It was a giant squid! They watched it wrap its tentacles around the camera. They watched it grab for the bag of bait. They had done it! They had the first photos of a living giant squid!
Since then, scientists have taken videos and more photos of giant squid. But there is still so much to learn. How many giant squid are there? How deep can they go? The search for these amazing animals
goes on. What will we find out next?
Into the Deep!
Giant squid live in the deep sea. There is hardly any light down there. What else lives in the deep dark sea?
Andy Murch/Blue Planet Archive
Cow Shark
This shark swims down in the deep. Its big green eyes help it see in the dark.
© Doug Perrine
(on head) Light
Anglerfish
How does this fish get food in the dark? It has a light on its head! Little fish swim up to look. Gulp!
Adisha Pramod/Alamy Stock Photo
Atolla Jellyfish
This jellyfish lights up. Its light flashes if a big fish comes close. That scares the big fish away.
Marc Chamberlain/Blue Planet Archive
Slime Star
Sea stars live in the deep sea too. This kind makes sticky slime. It can even squirt slime! Eww.
