colossal squid exhibit

Chlidonias · **colossal squid exhibit** 29-11-2008

World's first colossal squid display open soon - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Quote:

The Museum of New Zealand will open the world's only colossal squid exhibit on December 13.
The 495 kg, 4.2m female colossal squid will be on show at Te Papa in time for the summer school holidays, and will stay on free display for three years.
It will be lit in a custom-built tank, with displays of various body parts including the lens of its eye, and models of its beak and tentacle swivel hooks that can be touched and rotated.
"This exceptional specimen. . . contributes to our understanding and appreciation of our oceans depths and the amazing creatures that inhabit it," said Te Papa chief executive Seddon Bennington.
The tank with the squid inside weighs 3 tonnes and will be transported from the museum's Tory St workshops on Monday.
It is the most massive invertebrate ever discovered, and holds the record for the world's largest eye, measuring 27cm in diameter.
The squid was heavily hyped as a monster and "T-Rex of the Seas" after it was landed by the fishing vessel San Aspiring – gnawing on a hooked toothfish – in the Ross Sea in 2007.
Donated to the museum by then Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton, the squid turned out to be more a damp squib in terms of the 10m length initially estimated by the trawler skipper.
But when it was defrosted in April, the female squid proved fascinating in many other matters than size.
Marine biologist Dr Steve O'Shea, the main squid expert at Auckland's University of Technology, put together a theory that the female's body may be dark-coloured to cloak the glow of thousands of baby squid, which each have luminous glowing spots near their eyes.
"My research suggests they're not the T-Rex of the sea, they get more docile as they mature. . . as she got older she got shorter and broader and was reduced to a giant gelatinous blob, carrying many thousands of eggs," he said at the defrosting.
"It's likely she was just blobbing around the seabed carrying her brood of eggs, living on dead fish, while her mate was off hunting."
Discovery Channel US filmed the defrosting and examination of the colossal squid for a documentary that was released in the North America earlier this year.

djaeon · 29-11-2008

Neat. I'd like to see that if I were in N.Z.

Hix · 29-11-2008

In which city would you find the Museum of New Zealand?

Hix

Chlidonias · 29-11-2008

Wellington

Chlidonias · 13-12-2008

here's a news item from the other day about the opening of the squid exhibit. There's a video of the piece on the link.
3 News > Science-Tech > Story > Gargantuan squid ready for its public debut

Quote:

Half a million people around the world watched online as New Zealand's colossal squid was examined last April. Now there is international interest again, as the world's first colossal squid exhibition opens in Wellington, where it was discovered that finding a way to conserve and display the colossal squid was not easy.
"One of the big issues of natural environment specimens and displaying them is that traditionally you would have displayed them in alcohol," Robert Clendon from Te Papa says. "That's a fire risk to a museum."
Instead the squid is suspended in a liquid column of glycol and water in a custom-built tank.
"It's in an experimental fluid which is not toxic at all," explains Te Papa's Carol Diebel. "But nobody's really used it to this extent before."
The squid was landed by a fishing vessel in the Ross Sea last year and has attracted the interest of thousands of people from around the world.
"We're getting a lot of enquiries from the public, but also from overseas institutions about what we've done here, how we've preserved and how we've displayed it," Mr Clendon says.
Te papa will host a series of squid events over the summer, including dissections of smaller squid to introduce visitors to squid anatomy.
The exhibition of the colossal squid opens to the public tomorrow and admission is free. The squid is expected to remain in its experimental tank for around three years.

and here's an earlier article about the squid (from August). I liked the bit where Steve O'Shea says "My research suggests they're not the T-rex of the sea, they get more docile as they mature, a strange phenomenon that has caught scientists off guard" -- given that it was O'Shea that started the whole "colossal squid are voracious killers" in the first place!
3 News > Science-Tech > Story > Colossal squid may have dark secret - glowing babies

Quote:

The colossal squid being mounted for display at the Museum of New Zealand may have been a more lethargic blob than the "T-Rex of the Seas" billing it was given.
And marine biologist Dr Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at Auckland's University of Technology, says he has a theory that the 495kg female had something to hide when she was accidentally hauled in on a fishing line in the Ross Sea last year.
Measurements done when Dr O'Shea and other researchers thawed and preserved the half-tonne specimen in April showed the main part of the body, known as the mantle, was similar to a 2.5m length recorded for an immature female at the museum in 2003.
But its overall length was only 4.2m, compared with 6m for the immature female recorded in 2003, which was 195kg lighter, suggesting that mature females might get heavier but not longer.
Dr O'Shea said today he had also found the mantle was dark-coloured -- which in other species might mean its purpose was to hide the natural fluorescent glow of smaller squid eaten in the deep ocean.
But colossal squid are thought to mainly eat Antarctic toothfish, which do not glow, and his theory is that the female was "cloaking" thousands of baby squid, each with glowing spots near their eyes.
"If they're eating something that's glowing in the dark, bio-luminescent prey, then the darkness on the inside of the mantle shields the light from going outside and exposing the squid to a predator such as a sperm whale," he told said. "But we know they are not eating fish with light organs, but juvenile colossal squid do have two little light organs under their eyes. It looks like she is brooding many, many thousands of tiny colossal squid inside her mantle - and the darkness will shield the light".
Dr O'Shea told the AFP newsagency that the reputation of the colossal species as an aggressive and dangerous predator may have been over-hyped.
"My research suggests they're not the T-rex of the sea, they get more docile as they mature, a strange phenomenon that has caught scientists off guard," he said. "We are looking at something verging on the incredibly bizarre. As she got older she got shorter and broader and was reduced to a giant gelatinous blob, carrying many thousands of eggs. Her shape was likely to have affected her behaviour and ability to hunt. I can't imagine her jetting herself around in the water at any great speed, and she was too gelatinous to have been a fighting machine. It's likely she was just blobbing around the seabed carrying her brood of eggs, living on dead fish, while her mate was off hunting."
The squid has eyes the size of dinner plates - the biggest known in the animal kingdom - to help it find prey in the dark of its 1000m below the surface of Antarctic waters.
Two long tentacles carry up to 25 rotating hooks each, while eight arms each contain up to 19 fixed hooks used to capture prey and bring it to the squid's beaked mouth.
The preserved female's standard rostral length of the beak was 41 mm, compared with 37mm for the 2003 female, but other beaks of up to 49mm have been found in sperm whale stomachs.
The squid is expected to go on display in its special tank at Te Papa later this year.

*MARK* · 13-12-2008

Thanks for the info thats really interesting

Chlidonias · 14-12-2008

Collosal squid attracts monster fan club - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz

Quote:

A giant squid yesterday pulled in more than twice the usual number of Saturday visitors to Te Papa. Up to 6500 people queued for the first opportunity to see the world's only displayed colossal squid.

About 100 people sprinted to the 495kg creature's 6m tank inside Wellington's museum when the doors opened at 10am.

The squid, the largest of the museum's three specimens of the world's largest invertebrate, proved a gigantic hit.

"It's huge," said a wide-eyed Inzimam Ali, seven, of Johnsonville, who pestered his parents for a week to visit the exhibition after seeing a billboard about it.

"It makes me hate the sea," said Lena Riki, 20, of Upper Hutt, who took her children, three-year-old Iranui and 12-month-old Arapeta to the exhibition.

Although the colossal squid is the showpiece, the exhibition also includes a short 3-D animation film, computer interactives, specimen and model displays and an audiovisual telling the squid's remarkable journey since being captured by the fishing boat the San Aspiring on February 23, 2007. It was clinging to a toothfish longline in Antarctica's Ross Sea .

Lectures on the squid are also running over the weekend.

Te Papa staff said they knew the squid exhibit which runs until 2011 would be popular, but they were stunned by the huge turnout. "Seeing queues like this is rare and it's a gorgeous day outside it just shows you how keen people are," project manager Lucy Ryan said.

The colossal squid has also created a giant worldwide frenzy. When scientists thawed it in April, the BBC reported it was the most globally viewed internet story for the week.

A blogsite on Te Papa's dedicated website, The Colossal Squid Exhibition, had attracted interest around the world. An 85-year-old couple from America wrote they were keeping a close eye on the project.

"It makes me hate the sea," said Lena Riki, 20, of Upper Hutt -- ah, the museum's work is done...

djaeon · 15-12-2008

I don't think they should have used that "hate the sea" line. Out of the whole article, that's the one thing that will stick in peoples heads. It's too bad that the memorable line had to be a negative one.

Chlidonias · 15-12-2008

I think they may have been mocking the trailer trash who live in Upper Hutt

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