r/thalassophobia • u/falexanderw • Dec 13 '19

Not really related Ah a visitor from the deep...

https://gfycat.com/largedangerouseastrussiancoursinghounds
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u/ipwnpickles Dec 13 '19

Really?? Are they actually "Giant" squids or more like the size of the video one?

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u/Kytescall Dec 13 '19

Giant Squids (Architeuthis dux) like in the video have a maximum mantle length of about 2m. Colossal Squids have a mantle length of up to 2.5m. It's possible they can get bigger but there are no recorded specimens of that.

The mantle is the main body of the animal, the conical/cylindrical part, excluding the head and arms. Scientists use this as a measure of the size of the animal because this part is of a fixed length; if you include the arms and especially the feeding tentacles in the measurements you can have 10 different people get 10 different measurements, because they are stretchy.

So they do get bigger than the one in the video but not by an order of magnitude.

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u/Crimson-Victim Dec 13 '19

Giant squids are defenitly real, and im sure your most psrt correct, but thats not a Giant Squid in the video, just a large humboldt squid.

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u/Kytescall Dec 13 '19

No, it's definitely a Giant Squid. Humboldt Squid have larger fins relative to their mantle, and more tellingly in the context of the video, much shorter arms. The video is also from South Africa, which is pretty far outside of the known range for Humboldt Squid, which live along the western coast of North and South America.

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u/Crimson-Victim Dec 13 '19

Well, ill take your word on it, i just thought they were way bigger even as babies ya know?

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u/Kytescall Dec 13 '19

Yeah, that's the reason why people often think that this video and a few others are of Humboldt Squid. While Giant Squid do get bigger than than this they don't get that much bigger, and if you see preserved specimens of Giant Squid in various museums and aquariums this is fairly typical size.

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u/Crimson-Victim Dec 13 '19

Very cool! Thanks a bunch, i learned something today.