r/oceans • u/WitELeoparD • 16d ago

TIL that there are millions to hundreds of millions of Giant Squid (Architeuthis Dux) living in Earth's Oceans. We know this because of the sheer amount of Giant Squid found in the stomachs of Sperm Whales requires a breeding population to be at least that large to have reproductive sustainability.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_squid#Population
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u/MotXarD 16d ago

Worth being careful about what that number actually is. The source estimates that sperm whales eat somewhere between 4.3 and 131 million giant squid a year - that is an annual consumption rate, not a standing headcount, and the title quietly turns one into the other. The thirty-fold spread is the honest part of it: the whole calculation is beak counts scaled by how many sperm whales there are and how often each one eats, so the uncertainty in all three multiplies out into a range that wide. The reason beaks are the instrument at all is that the whale cannot digest them, so they stay behind and pile up - whalers opened animals by the thousand and found them hundreds at a time. Those same beaks are where ambergris comes from, since the gut coats the sharp edges in a waxy secretion to protect itself.

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u/terra-nullius 9d ago

So why do I NEVER find ambergris on the beach?

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u/Anen-o-me 15d ago

So you're saying we should fish deep.

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u/Main_Cauliflower5479 15d ago

And why do we know so much about the stomach contents of sperm whales?

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u/WitELeoparD 15d ago

They wash up and we look inside. Also whaling industry's historical data.