Giant squid were once the stuff of sea monster legend.
With their eyes (the biggest in the animal kingdom) and tentacles (they're more predatory than previously believed), these sea-dwelling creatures eluded humans for centuries, making their first cameo just two
years ago. Now, giant squid are turning up with regularity off the
Japanese coast. And like Captain Ahab before him, one Japanese fisherman
suspects something fishy: It must be “some kind of omen.”
Such was the concern of Shigenori Goto,
who “had seen no giant squid before in [his] 15-year fishing career.”
Two weeks ago, he caught a 13-footer at Sadogashima Island.
“When I hauled up the net,” he told local reporters, “the squid slowly came floating up.”
The
strange occurrences began earlier this year. A giant squid was caught
in a stationary net near Sadogashima Island; another was found in a
similar situation in the town of Iwami a few days later. Then, on Jan.
19, tentacles—presumably from a giant squid—washed up off the shore of
Kashiwazaki, another coastal city.
Able
to regenerate limbs, giant squid have tentacles that can extend up to
33 feet. The mollusks usually live about 2,000 feet below sea level,
where water temperatures typically run 10 degrees Celsius.
So why are more giant squid being seen by humans? Tsunemi Kuboder of
the country’s National Museum of Nature and Science, has a theory: With
ocean temperatures dropping in the region this year, the giant squid
may be abandoning the chilly ocean depths for the surface, where the
water is warmer.
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