The Giant Squid and the Myth of Monsters
For centuries, the Architeuthis was dismissed as a sailor's myth until a single photograph changed marine biology forever.
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Victorian naturalists dismissed the giant squid as a literary device until physical evidence emerged in the eighteen seventies.
Reverend Moses Harvey proved the squid's existence by photographing a twenty-four foot specimen draped over a bathtub.
The first live photographs in two thousand four revealed the squid is a vibrant red, muscular animal.
Evidence from the Ogasawara Islands confirmed the giant squid is an active predator nine hundred meters deep.
Scientific models once incorrectly assumed the giant squid was a passive, jellyfish-like drifter based on decaying carcasses.
The eighteen seventies Newfoundland discoveries transitioned the giant squid from maritime myth to formal biological classification.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Kraken in the Laboratory2 min
- 03The Bathtub Specimen2 min
- 04The Invisible Giant2 min
- 05From Drifter to Predator2 min
- 06Outro1 min
- File:Logy Bay giant squid, 1873.jpg - Wikimedia Commons
- Here's looking at you, squid
- Giant Squid - National Maritime Historical Society
- Museum of Comparative Zoology
- 5 Big Facts about Newfoundland's Giant Squid
- First-ever observations of a live giant squid in the wild - PMC
- Giant Squid on Baited Camera - Smithsonian Ocean Portal
- Live Giant Squid Photographed for First Time
- First sighting of an adult giant squid in its natural habitat
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