Giant squids – Architeuthis and Mesonychoteuthis, pronounced ar-ke-teu-tus and mez-a-nic-a-teu-tus – symbolise an extraordinary paradox as we move through the beginning of the 21st century. As humankind endeavours to detect signs of life in the solar system and beyond, enormous creatures inhabit our oceans, no living specimens of which have yet been observed by science. Washed up and damaged carcasses are the sole clues as to the natural history of these beasts. There was not even an image of a live giant squid until September 2005, when two Japanese researchers took the first photographs of the creature in its natural habitat. Aptly, they have been tagged as the least-known large animals on earth, and the largest invertebrates in the known universe.
They are the last 'monsters' to be conquered. Some 13 metres long, weighing up to 500 kg, with an array of hooks, claws and suction cups, the largest eyes in the animal kingdom and a misplaced parrot beak-like mouth, these giants of the deep are not only monstrous but essentially alien. From the kraken of antiquity, with which they have been identified, to the battles of Captain Nemo in Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, to the 'thing' in Michael Crichton's novel Sphere (1987) and the 'beast' of Peter Benchley's 1991 novel of the same name, giant squids have long been represented as terrifying monsters. Little wonder that they now lurk in the nether regions of our subconscious.
The Sri Lanka-based writer Arthur C Clarke was fascinated with giant squids from the time he was a boy, when he saw an illustration in Frank Bullen's The Cruise of the Cachalot (1899) of a fight between a sperm whale and a squid. This fascination manifested itself in his writings, along with a desire to rouse his readers' fears of the 'monster from the depths'. For instance, in his short story 'The Shining Ones', Sir Arthur wrote of a Swiss engineer who is contracted to repair a damaged hydro-thermal generator located at a depth of 500 fathoms off the coast of Sri Lanka. The engineer descends in a mini-sub to find that a large section of the generator has been torn away. After repairing the damage he spots two, comparatively small, giant squids communicating with each other – using their light-producing organs, known as photophores, to create images. First he discerns a pattern that resembles a mini-sub, followed by one that looks suspiciously like an enormous squid. It dawns on him that they have summoned Big Brother. The engineer's last words are: 'The thing is
absolutely gigan…'
The enormous mass
During the second half of the 19th century, little was known about the giant squid – or calamari, as it was often called. The first reliably documented encounter between a ship and a giant squid occurred in 1861, near Tenerife, when the French warship Alecton attacked one with harpoons and guns. A lucky shot hit a vital organ, for the unfortunate creature vomited blood. The crew tried to haul it aboard, but the noose sliced through its soft flesh and the head and tentacles sank.