| Date: | April 19, 2006 12:47 pm |
| Subject: | Science | | Word Count: | 504 | | Page Count: | 3 |
Squid
Squid are wild and wonderful. They are believed to be remarkably intelligent
because of their apparently complex communication system. They include the
Vampire Squid, and the elusive and mysterious Giant Squid. I researched the
Giant Squid which is the biggest animals in the sea. The giant squid lives in
most of the world`s oceans and is among the biggest animals in the sea but it is
rarely seen. It hunts smaller sea creatures but larger animals feed on it. It
has inspired fantastic tales but the facts are even more fascinating than the
ficiton. For over 2,000 years the giant squid has inspired fear, fascination,
and fantastis stories. Encounters with this huge invertebrate have always been
rare and distant. And only recently has there been scientific evidence to
dispute the legends. Centuries ago, people invented explanations for what their
astonished eyes saw. In 1500`s, when several large unfamiliar sea creatures were
stranded in Norway, people decided they were gMermenh. A merman is a giant
squid. Until the 1880`s , the giant squid was thought to be a legend. But in
1888, a giant squid 57 feet long washed ashore on a New Zealand beach. It had
tentacles 35 feet long, and its eyes were each larger than a dinner plate. (It
is amazing!) One captured sperm whale regurgitated two 42 foot long tentacles in
an aquarium, meaning the squid they came from was roughly 66 feet long, and
weighed 85,000 pounds. Scientists do not know exactly where in the sea it lives,
they have not been to study it alive. The giant squid can be up to 18m (59 ft),
and their weight can be up to 900kg (1980lb,nearly 1ton). In addition, They were
caught everywhere in the world, especially in the North of Atlantic. Scientists
suspect giant squid live mostly at depth of 200 to 700, One of the giant squid
found stranded on U.S. shores where in Washed ashore on Plum Island,
Massachusetts, in 1980. It was the only third giant squid that they found
stranded in U.S. shores. The total of specimen was 2.7m ( 9 ft) and the weight
was 200 kg (440 lb).The giant squid eat mainly fishes and other squids, based on
scientific analysis of the stomach contents of two giant specimens. Giant,
menacing sea monsters have been written about for centuries. Sailors have told
fantastic stories of being attacked by monsters with enormous flailing tentacles
and huge, black menacing eyes . These stories probably originated from sightings
of the largest marine invertebrate which is the giant squid. The giant squid
have the ability to jet propel themselves through the water at 20 miles per
hour, faster than most sailing ships of the past. As squid can also launch
itself out of the water while moving at high speed , appearing to fly, which
would be pretty unnerving to superstitious sailors on a whaling ship. In
recently, a scientific expedition was launched to search the deepest oceans of
the world for the elusive giant squid. Deep water manned and unmanned submarines
will be used to try to find out more about the huge invertebrates. Perhaps there
are still many things that we donft know about the squid, but the mystery of
the sea monsters will soon be solved.
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