Giant squid, once believed to be mythical creatures, are squid of the Architeuthidae family, represented by as many as eight species of the genus Architeuthis.
Giant Squid Range
Fast Facts
Type: Invertebrate Diet: Carnivore Size: 33 ft (10 m) Weight: 440 lbs (200 kg) Group name: School Did you know? A giant squid's eye can be as big as a beach ball. Size relative to a bus: ...
Giant squid breathe using 2 large gills that rest inside the mantle cavity.
>> See the public dissection of giant squid by Dr. Mark Norman ...
Giant squid vs. sperm whale - Received from Mrs. Dello Russo's class in Cambridge, MA ...
GIANT SQUID
The giant squid (Architeuthis) is the largest squid and the largest invertebrate (animal without a backbone), but it is rarely (if ever) seen since it lives very deep in the oceans.
Giant squid is the sperm whale's favorite food. They also eat schooling fish, seals and sharks. Sperm whales consume approximately one ton of food each day.
BEHAVIOR: ...
Giant Squid
Eye is 25 cm in diameter.
Retina can contain up to 1 billion photoreceptors.
Grasshopper ...
A giant squid found in Logy Bay, Newfoundland, in 1873. The two long feeding tentacles are visible on the extreme left and right.
[edit] Head appendages
Main articles: Cephalopod arm and tentacle ...
The giant squid is one of the largest invertebrates ever to exist in the world's oceans. It has one of the largest eyes of any animal in the world-over 1 ft (30 cm) in diameter.
In 2003, a large specimen of the colossal squid was discovered.
The Search for Giant Squid
Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants
at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History
Humboldt or Jumbo Squid
Dosidicus gigas ...
The giant squid is the largest of all mollusks. Most cephalopods are highly adapted for swimming. The body mass is very tall. There is no foot; the lower part of the body wall is drawn out to form a ring of arms, or tentacles, around the head.
Scar marks from the tentacles of Giant Squid were seen and photographed on one individual. Eventually, a sounding dive provided a nice display of the tail flukes.
BEAKED WHALE sp. (2): Quickly showed three times at the surface before disappearing.
Sperm whales range across most of the world's oceans, but they are most usually found in those latitudes inhabited by the giant squid, which is its favourite food: off the coasts of South America, Africa, the Arabian Sea, ...
Food
squid (including giant squid), octopus, fish. It also eats some sharks and skates.
Breeding
A single calf is born after a gestation period of about 15 months. The calf is about 4 m at birth and weighs about 1000kg.
Sometimes giant squid put up such a struggle that scars are made on the whale's head by the tentacles. Scientists are not certain how the sperm whale catches its prey, but it is believed that the whale stuns it with very loud sound waves.
Could a Squid Take Down a Submarine?
Giant squids pulling submarines down to the depths is the stuff of legends, right? Find out for sure at HowStuffWorks.com.
Download Killer Clips ...
The largest toothed whale, over 50 feet long. It eats giant squid.
The walrus is a large mammal that spends most of its life in icy seas.
The Weddell seal is a large, nocturnal pinniped from Antarctica.
Diet
Sperm whales mainly feed on squid, including giant squid - the largest invertebrate in the world - although they will also feed on octopus, deep-water fish, sharks and skate.
Animals range in size from no more than a few cells to organisms weighing many tons, such as blue whales and giant squid. By far most species of animals are insects, with groups such as mollusks and nematodes also being especially diverse.
The deepest diver is the Sperm Whale who dive to 10,500 feet to prey on Giant Squids.
Though barnacles are a mere discomfort, young humpbacks do have natural enemies and are prey to the killer whale and perhaps the giant squid.
The sperm whale is one of the ocean's largest and most dominant predators, feeding primarily on medium sized squid. The sperm whale is also known to hunt larger squid species including the colossal and giant squids, and also octopus and large fish.
The primary food source of the sperm whale is the medium deep water squid. They will eat fish, octopus, and other marine animals as well. Occasionally they will catch and eat a giant squid.
of Sperm Whales tend to occur where the seabed rises steeply from a greater depth, beyond the continental shelf.
It is likely they feed on squid, octopus and fish.
They are able to dive to depths of 2500m and have been recorded eating Giant Squid up ...
 See also: Squid, Whale, Sperm Whale, Octopus, Shark
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