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Searching
for Sealife
The
giant squid, long the stuff of myths, remains one of the most
elusive animals on the planet. While many whalers and fishermen
have described giant squid locked in mortal combat with whales
or ships, no scientist has ever seen a live adult. The little
that is known about the beasts, therefore, is derived from
the small sample of carcasses that wash up on shores and from
the bits recovered from the bellies of their only known predator—the
sperm whale.
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No
scientists has ever observed a live giant squid.
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That's
why in 1999, when a group of scientists wanted to study giant
squid, they went looking for sperm whales. The multinational
team-including scientists from research facilities such as
Cornell University's Lab of Ornithology Bioacoustics and New
Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research
(NIWA)-explored the 3,000-foot-deep Kaikoura Canyon off the
coast of New Zealand.
After
visually locating and approaching sperm whales at the surface,
the scientists used hydrophones to listen in on the whales'
activity. When a whale began to emit the series of clicks
associated with diving and hunting for food, the scientists
used the sound data to figure out the depth and range of the
whales' dives. The researchers found that the whales dove
for 40 to 50 minutes and reached depths of more than 1,000
feet.
This
information gave researchers a better idea about where to
deploy their underwater instruments if they hope to catch
a giant squid on camera.
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On
January 18th 1998, University of Aberdeen student
Oscar Campbell spotted this squid on the beach at
Newburgh, Scotland
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"The
whales were used as marine hound dogs to provide clues about
where the elusive [giant squid] might lurk," Dr. Clyde Roper
of the Smithsonian Institute's Museum of Natural History wrote
in his online
journal of the expedition.
Video
equipment aboard the researchers' Deep Rover submersible ultimately
did not find the creature that has eluded scientists for so
long. But the expedition did film other deep-sea species never
before observed in their natural environment and tested the
high-tech equipment that will one day likely reveal much about
what has been called "the last sea monster."
Click
here
for more information about the Deep Sea/Giant Squid Expedition
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Images::U.S.
Minerals Management Service
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