Read this off Channel News Asia website yesterday. The World Biggest Sotong (as we affectionaly call it in Singapore the Malay word for Squid) was caught off Antartic waters and is now in New Zealand with a team of scientists waiting to unveal the mysteries of the big creature.
Photo copied from their official blog named Te Papa
Look at the size of that Sotong... Imagine how many plates of sotong balachan or calamari we can make from it. Hahah... Anyway, just to let you know, sea creature this size cannot be eaten because in order to stay afloat, their body will accumulate a lot of ammonia. Even without ammonia, big sea creatures also accumulate a lot more mecury than smaller fish, so they are not fit for human consumption.
The scientific term of that Sotong is Colossal Squid. They lived in deep waters and usually feed on toothfish (which is another big big fish). The one which was caught was about 495kg and the exact lenght has to be measured later when it was fully thawed. Guess what eats them? Bigger creatures of course like Sperm Whales ! As written in their blog, the captured Colossal Squid is a female as they just found eggs in her ovaries. Her eye ball was supposely to be the size of a beach ball. Scarier thing is that they have hooks on their tenticles. Imagine you got caught by this creature... You are never going to get away.
Little is known about this creature as few were caught so far. This batch of scientists decided to find out as much as they can about the creature, before preserving it in a large tank for public viewing later. The process of thawing can be viewed on their website now through the web cam. Discovery Channel has also documented the whole process and will be showing it later in 2008.
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