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Ananova
:
Fishermen
trawling for swordfish off Spain have landed a 16 ' giant squid
Fishermen trawling for swordfish off Spain have landed a 16 feet long
giant squid.
A Spanish vessel operating off the Azores in the mid-Atlantic found
the dead creature in July when it became entangled in fishing lines.
Crew members froze it at sea and brought the squid back to the port
of Vigo.
Giant squids are so elusive there have only been 300-odd documented
sightings in the past 500 years and no one's ever seen one alive, said
Mario Rasero, a biologist at the Spanish Oceanographic Institute.
"They are one of the sea's last big mysteries," he said.
In 1999 the world's top expert on the species, Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian
Institution in Washington, DC., attached a video camera to the head
of a sperm whale _ the giant squid's only known predator _ in deep waters
off New Zealand in a novel but failed bid to see a live one.
Giant squids usually live alone at depths ranging from 200 to 1,000
meters, drifting with the current. But sometimes they surface, as in
this case, apparently to feed on the Spaniards' fish bait with a beak-like
mouth of material similar to human toenails, Rasero added.
After being studied, the specimen will be preserved in formaldehyde
and exhibited in a museum.
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