In the olden days there were many stories of ships getting attacked by giant squids, but you never hear about things like that nowadays, though everybody knows that giant squids exists for real.

Now I'm thinking like this: is that because there's hardly any sailing ships cruising the big oceans nowadays? Many marine creatures are very sensitive to sound and smell, so maybe the wooden ships that were powered by the wind seemed more interesting to the squids that the modern steel ships powered by engines?

Kinda makes me wonder if the Swedish East Indiaman Götheborg will have any interesting encounters on her way to China...

you make a good point. they are probably scared of all the noise that follows with those big ships

Ditto... Good point!

Weee, I thought up something intelligent for a change!

frighting....arent they...and they are real!
In 1875 the barque Pauline spotted a sperm whale with a snake-like creature wrapped around it's mid-section. The crew reported this sea serpent eventually dragged the whale down to its death. More likely the "snake" was the arm of a large squid in battle with the whale. Many old mariners’ tales include crewmembers being whisked off deck by giant tentacles armed with plate sized suction cups. good work sofia

i thought sperm whales usually won against giant squids, it must of been a big squid

plus most ships that are on the seas now are much bigger, plus the radar/sonar probably scare the squid off...

That's a very good point. Even if giant squids still attacked, though, they'd have a hard time doing any damage to an oil tanker or aircraft carrier, fortunately. What puzzles me is why in these old stories the giant squid are all the way up at the surface and not in the deep where they're supposed to belong. Has something, perhaps our bigger ships, driven them further down?

Just because a squid had a tentacle wrapped around the whale does not necessarily mean the whale was being "dragged to its death". Quite the contrary, the observers didn't realize it was a squid, because the rest of it was down the whale's gullet, with one last tentacle desperately clinging "outside" the whale.

good reply

Perhaps sightings of the Giant Squid influenced people into believing that it was a vicious animal. Are there any written reports of a Giant Squid attacking a ship?

well say that to people who saw the actual sight, its quoted by them. and its said' In the ocean's deepwater trenches, perhaps 2,000 to 5,000 feet deep, sperm whales would attack and eat the giant squid. In turn, the giant squid, some up to 60 feet long, would grab a whale and try to drown it, and if the squid won the fight, be joined by other giant squid and devour the whale. Scientists verified this by measuring the length of the squid tentacle's suction-cup marks that were found on the sides and backs of dead whales that washed up, as well as from the size of the beaks of giant squid that were found in the stomachs of whales.

I agree, the metal ships and engine noises may be un-interesting to the squid... What I think may be the more likely cause, as previously mentioned, is the use of sonar nowadays, I mean, whales hunt and navigate by sonar, hell sperm whales actually use a ultra-concentrated sonar ping as a weapon to stun the squid. (Sound so powefully condenced it's like a showckwave) Think of a parade when you have all the bass drums beating, and the feet marching, you feel the the concussion in your chest. Imagine that 100's of times more powerful, it'd knock you off your feet. So I think they avoide the sonar emitiing ships because they confuse them with their predators "Whales"

Get real, DK. All they said was that a whale surfaced and submerged again and that it it something like a sea serpent wrapped aroud it, which in all liklihood was the last reamains of a swallowed squid.

The huge sucker marks on the many whales captured by human whalers amply proves the fact that the whales probably "always" won, not to mention finding thousands of squid beads in a single sperm whale.

Imagining a bunch of squid teaming up to drown a sperm whale is a ridiculous fantasy.

From what I know, it's not possible. Giant Squid are deep sea creatures, which mean they need high pressure to survive. They wouldn't just naturally come up to the ocean surface. Krakens were simply in myths and legends, I doubt that there's much truth to the claims that they pulled down ships.



Why is it 'ridiculous fantasy'? Personally I don't find it hard to believe, unless you mean it's fantasy that the Giant Squid would organise an attack against a sperm whale? Even still, I don't find it so farfetched.

Not trying to be a "buttmunch" but, I would like to beg the differ. The engines of ships produce a low hum. If squid are deep sea dwelling creatures as they are, and capable of living in frigid water. Deep enough where light doesn't reach, they would be using sonar and low frequencies to locate prey, as well as other animals that utilize sonar, like whale, dolphines, and sharks, killer whales. Like as you mentioned about the giant squid attacking a sperm whale which communicates using sonar. Also, if you watch shark videos, they seem to be actracted to biting the back end of fiberglass boats belong to the scientists. Low or weak noises will atract them, though strong noise scares them off. Even friction of boats accross water will emit low frequencies. Different levels of frequencies will even compress or decompess the density of water as it travels. Some fish are even able til feel the difference in water pressure, alarming them that a predator or prey is around. In doing so, they are able to tell if something is heading for them ( compressing water) or decompressing ( going away).



I agree with all the above, evolution is the biotch. Everything gets smarter. Even viruses that once could not transfer to humans now have becomes succesful.


What do you guys think?

Not necessarily. 'Cos if a whale went down do the great depths to eat some squid, but got drowned by one or more squids you'd never know, right? The squids would probably devour the whale right away, and other deep sea predators/scavengers would join the party as well, so there wouldn't be much left of the whale that could float to the surface.
And squids are more intelligent than one might think, so it's not all that impossible for them to work together.


Well, sperm whales are surface dwelling air breathing creatures, but that doesn't stop them from going into the great depths to feed...

Yeah, but squid are way beyond the depths of whales, deep enough where there are those fish that don't have eyes because it's so deep. I think that has to do with why squid have a cartelidge spine. Ummmm..... i love eating squid.......yum

but if the squids are way beyond the deapth of the whales, how come they don't stay there and thus avoid getting eaten by said whales?

PERHAPS THEY DON'T WANT TO! JESUS!!

Dude. Calm down, ok?

Good point. I guess it's a good thing they don't... It'd be scary if your ship got attacked by a squiddie, wouldn't it? Or even worse... The... T-t-the... Leviathon!

TeraLink Was Here!

I seriously doubt they attack ships though. Even if they did, it's funny how these people survive. I think it's been exaggerated by people, though there are such things as squid that are larger than around 30 long. I have never heard of giant squid getting eaten by whale. I know that whales do work together , by diving deep and blowing bubbles up to the surface, flanking the squid by flushing them to the top, and the group of whales then shoot to the top at a high rate of speed and capturing squid as it shoots up out of the water.


Yes, good point, but by instincts, most prey are lured somehow, some way. And by instincts, predators will go looking for prey.
This is why they have the same methods in fishing, some lures are made to rattle and make noises to attract fish.

As for the imaginary Squid on whale attack, even if one or more of them cleverly ambused the whale from behind and tried to drown it, it would steadily rise to the surface given its powerful flukes, and the squid would probably die or become injured by the pressure change. This might even be a good getting stategy of the whales when dealing with particularly large and unruly meals. Let them wind around and take it to the surface.

I believe the earliest "kraaken" legends considered it a kind of reptilian/draconic sea monster, but with the discovery of dead giant squid, the kraaken "evolved" into a giant squid. As far as the "sea monsters" that really attack ships, sperm whales are fully documented in this role. If the occasional whale, before the age of commercial whaling, discovered crushing wooden ships would yield a worthwhile food source, they could become terrifying sea monsters and explain why such creatures were believed in and feared for so many centuries. Interesting though, there are a number of ancient greco-roman depictions of "sea monsters" that look uncannily like prehistoric plesiosaurs, and one wonders what inspired them. Fossils, maybe, but they would still not know they were reptilian in nature, yet they are in the ancient artwork.

The possibility once again of giant squid attacking ships is not really feasable. For one thing, which has been mentioned a number of times in this thread, is because they are made to live deep within the ocean's bed. Plus there would be no point for a squid to attack a ship. If it did for some reason attack a ship by pure chance, it would not struggle with it long, as it realized it was an in-animate object, and clearly not beak edible. The only idea I would have that they received such a legend, is the possibility of such a creature being washed up on shore.

The dead bodies of squid have been documented to be washed up on beaches, and for a religious based civilization to witness such a creature one morning, would inspire some great folklore of how it came to be.

As a side note NME, it is true that giant squid is a species that whales do in fact feast upon. This has been documented like stated previously when disecting Sperm Whales, and finding giant squid beaks. Although whales are not native to the deep ocean pressure like squids, it would be possible for a whale to dive deep down for a short amount of time in order to find and eat a squid. It's nothing different then me or you diving deeper then we were intended to go. Although our bodies are not native to the pressurization, we can withstand it for a decent amount of time, before body aches are apparant.

DC please stop with the dragons...we have heard enough....Pluys, Norse Mythology CLEARLY states that the kraken was a monster that used its arms to wrap and submerge ships...AND please don't warp Norse mythology anymore.

All thsi talk of Giant Squid makes you thing if GBOs are real....

im talking REAL facts....dc, giant squids or squids in gereral are nuture's most nasty...why these attack and eat their own kind. if you think squids dont ''attack'' whales or ships.. read for urself at... http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/squid.htm
i do not disagree on sperm whales making a meal out of them.yum

uummmm, sorry, but Sperm whales commonly eat giant squid, and consideing very much alive ones can be seen with sucker marks on their skins and huge squid in their bellies (or just their beaks), it strongly suggests that if squid are as intelligent as you say, they probably try to escape from, rather than confront their worst nightmare.

I hope this is not the beginning of a "Paulwhale-esque" rant on the invincibility of the giant squid. Countless thousands of squid beaks, found in a single individual, of a population of whales that eats the equivalent of (mostly) squid each year equavlent to the biomass of the entire human race (according to J. Cousteau), strongly suggest that the Whales are the predators and the squid are the prey.

Now tell us about the horde of mice that team up and eat cats.

giant squid are bad. these are nasty giants that will attack as fear is unknown to it. written in site link about.

I agree. Just because Squid don't always (probably almost never) win, doesn't mean they don't attack the Sperm Whales. Like most creatures run if they see a threat, the Squid probably attempt to face it.

Well said Azalin, but aren't whales non selective eaters? I mean by, they don't pick a squid and go after it. They are known to gather as many things as possible an one huge scoop? Is it possible that the whale happens to capture giant squid that are preying among the fish and other prey that the whale was hunting for like Herrons?

I wish I knew more about whales to answer that question. Im not sure if whales are selective eaters or not, all I do know, like dolphins and turtles and alligators that they come to the surface for air, then dive deep for food. I would assume if a giant squid came closer to the surface, a sperm whale would not hesitate in attacking it. A sperm whale would in fact keep eating until it's full, no matter what it came across. Although, I would assume they are intelligent enough to know what their prey is and is not. With that in mind, they would know that in order to eat giant squid they would have to go deep, and this pays off, because giant squid may not pose a big threat against them, and will fill them up quite well.

I remember watching a nature show about lions and tigers chasing prey. If they did not get the jump on the prey, they would not persue it, as it MAY be a waste of energy, cause the prey could out run them. In this case, I assume whales would be smart enough to choose whether eating a giant squid would be worth it or not.

well said

Thanks Az...
I do know that whales are smart enough to utilize a group effort when hunting. They would begin by diving deep all together. A few hundred meters down, they would then blow a massive amount of bubbles that then rise to the surface. These bubbles cause confusion and scare the herrons and other fish to the surface, all huddled tightly together within the circle of bubbles, thus causing a area dense in fish. Then, the whales begin to ascend to the surface and gradually building speed, they do so in a pack of whales. They all aim fotr the schools of fish, and once arriving the target, they all open there giant mouths and come darting out of the surface of the water. That's why we sometimes see whales jump out of the water, sometimes feeding and sometimes playing.

Now, in the process of doing so, don't you think that they eat anything else that is within the school of fish/prey that are surrounded within the bubbles?

That's what I meant by selective eating, because what if sometimes they document this in whales? Not all the time did they intentionally mean to eat the squid, but the squid saw a good oppurtunity to take advantage of the fish? Sorry if I was not being clear.

That may be how they get their food, I will assume your right on this notion, since Im not sure on the eating habits of whales. Whether Whales hunt Giant Squids to me is unknown. I assume they are intelligent enough to do this if they actually wanted. I obviously agree if a whale "hunted" giant squid, I doubt it would be successful enough to keep itself full, it would have to eat thousands of other schools of fish. I also agree that your right, on that whales blowing the bubbles creates enough confusion in the ocean, and that it is the best tactic for them to eat large portions to fill themselves. However I do not dis-count the fact that a whale could "hunt" for giant squid. Whether schools of them do on a regular basis, like I said, I doubt it, they would not be successful enough to feed a colony of whales, but I could see several whales doing that for their own enjoyment.

No, for sure I agree with you that whales hunt suid too. I'm just saying, though it is documented that whales have eaten giant squid, how do they know the cause and effects if no one knows the intentions at that time.

Recently saw a special about giant squid -

Very interesting, scientists found that they hunt together, and show signs of curiousity, which is of course suprising [to the scientific community, I think animals are much smarter than they are given credit for].

Of course they are being over-fished in some parts of the world, why must humans continually harvest these creatures??

The only thing I can say for that, is the fact of the number of squids found within the whales. There can be hundreds of beaks that are found within the stomach, letting scientists know, that Giant Squids and Whales do in fact meet quite commonly. It's like a mythological battle, between the grizzly bear and the lion. So whether or not Whales hunt squid would be irrelevant, the fact that whales eat hundreds of them in their lifetime, suggests that they are in fact prey, and prey are generally hunted.

Sauteed Calamari Bourgeoisie


Ingredients:
2 lbs Squid
1/4 lb Butter
1 clove Garlic, minced
pinch of Cayenne
1/4 cup Rhine Wine
1 Tbsp Parsley, chopped
1/4 tsp Salt
1/8 tsp Pepper
2 cups Rice
Directions:
Thoroughly clean squid and cut into rings. In medium pot, boil rice per instructions. Melt butter in sauce pan over medium heat. Add garlic, cayenne, parsley, salt, and pepper. Sauté gently for 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Add calamari rings and brown lightly for 3 minutes or so. Add Rhine wine and simmer for 8 minutes, or until squids are done but not over-cooked. Serve over your favorite rice. Garnish with parsley flakes sprinkled over dish and apple and lemon slices on the edge.
Serves 4 to 6.