CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Are there really giant deep-sea squids in the world?

Of course there are! There are also deep-sea giant octopuses. They live in the dark deep sea. Sometimes their incomplete bodies will be washed ashore by the sea water, and occasionally they will meet ocean-going fishing boats on the sea surface. People have always known very little about them, and various speculations about them are called one of the "last mysteries left by the ocean to mankind." In recent years, scientists have used advanced detection technology to continuously discover their traces. Giant sea monsters haunt the depths of the sea. Rumors about deep-sea giant squids began in the 12th century AD and came from the mouths of Norwegian navigators: there is a "monster" in the deep sea waters, covered with tentacles, big or small, but can bring fatal threats to people. In the 18th century novel "Norwegian Natural History", this mysterious ocean "monster" was described as a "floating island". Once it approaches the fleet, even a huge warship can be wrapped by its outstretched tentacles and dragged to the bottom of the sea. In the science fiction novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" by Jules Verne, the "father of science fiction novels", the image of a giant squid attacking a submarine was vividly recorded. During World War II, there were rumors that a giant squid raided warships sailing on the sea and killed the crew. For more than 100 years, people have continuously found dead giant squids washed up on the coast, but almost no one has ever seen them alive. Perhaps the ocean sailors who have seen their true faces have not survived. People only rely on some inaccurate information to guess their mysterious lives, which makes them even more terrifying. In various science fiction, fantasy and adventure novels, this super-large marine animal is portrayed as a very scary "monster" - two huge beaks, and all the tentacles have hooks that can rotate at will. For a long time, even scientists did not know much about the living habits and living environment of this huge animal living in the deep sea, because the information available for them to study was pitifully small, either the remains of the body washed up on the coast, or it was already dying when it was salvaged by commercial fishing boats. Scientists can only restore them based on these incomplete specimens. In 1953, someone finally saw this deep-sea "monster" in person. Witnesses said, "It really has a sensational impact." Since the mid-1990s, many scientific expedition teams have gone out to sea specifically to search for giant squids, but most of them have returned empty-handed. It was not until recent years that the invention and application of various new ocean exploration technologies have led to great progress in the study of giant squids. Currently, scientists are pieced together the true face of this deep-sea "monster" bit by bit - this is a giant squid, a cephalopod, one of the 650 members of the squid family (including common squids, calamari and squids, etc.); it has a pair of large eyes and 10 curled tentacles, is agile and can retract freely, and is one of the largest invertebrates on Earth; it may use the light organs on its tentacles to emit light, lure prey and transmit information; it is widely distributed in deep sea waters and is not a rare endangered species.

In some literary works and legends about ocean exploration, the mysterious and terrifying shadow of the "giant squid" often appears. In the past, people could only conduct relevant research on this animal through dead squid caught in fishing nets or the "remains" of giant squid washed ashore by waves. Scientists once hoped to observe their growth and living conditions by artificially breeding small squids, but these little guys often die soon after being "confined."

Recently, two scientists from Japan successfully took the first "natural life photo" of this deep-sea monster. At that time, a giant squid with a length of more than 8 meters was hunting prey in the sea water 900 meters deep. The scientists captured many precious moments with a remote-controlled camera and took samples from it for analysis. The DNA test results showed that the giant creature that was waving its claws in front of the camera was a "family" with the deep-sea squid previously captured.

It is reported that the researchers tied a camera and a depth gauge to a floating long rope and lowered it to the seabed to capture the squid. They hung a small squid as bait under the camera and used a bag of chopped shrimp to lure the giant octopus. When the giant squid, which was about 8 meters long, wrapped its tentacles around the bait, it was hooked by a hook hidden inside. In this way, as the giant squid struggled to break free, scientists took more than 550 pictures, including scenes of the giant octopus stretching its tentacles, wrapping the long rope, and trying to escape.

Scientists said that after struggling for 4 hours and 13 minutes, the giant squid finally broke free from the hook, but one of the hooked 6-meter-long tentacles was cut off from its body and pulled out of the water from the seabed. At that time, this sticky guy was still alive and kept sticking to the deck of the research ship with its suction cups. Scientists are worried that human fishing activities, especially deep-sea trawling operations, may destroy squid eggs on the seabed on a large scale, resulting in the sperm whales that feed on this squid being "starved".

Tracking the 8-meter-long giant squid is not an easy task, but their natural enemy, sperm whales, forage for food near the North Pacific Ocean from September to December every year. Therefore, Japanese researchers tracked the activities of sperm whales and finally successfully captured the activity image of the giant squid with an underwater camera in the 900-meter deep sea near the Ogasawara Islands. It is reported that the biggest feature of the giant squid is that it has a pair of super-long tentacles, some of which can account for about two-thirds of its total length. At the same time, the "broken arm" will not affect the injured squid.

have,