Deep Sea News

Giant Squid, Live and In Technicolor!

Posted by Kevin Zelnio on April 16, 2008
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i-7fe789875475f31878830aaf158a64dd-ColossalSquidsteveOShea.jpg
Teuthologist Dr. Steve O’Shea and Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, the colossal squid. Photo credit: Kathrin Bolstad

Monster squid hunter extraordinaire Dr. Steve O’Shea will be dissecting giant and colossal squids and it will be webcasted LIVE from Te Papa Museum in New Zealand. It will be an event-filled week as Dr. O’Shea and his squidaliscious team of crack experts unlock the mysteries of deep sea squids, starting with the thawing!

“Thawing the frozen squid is the first challenge. There have been many suggestions (inlcuding 462 suggestions from the public!) about how to carry out this process. The temperature of the squid will be gradually raised, over several days, in the tank in which it will finally be preserved. It will be thawed in a saline solution to prevent decay of the outer tissue while the inner sections are still frozen. The squid might take up to four days to thaw.”

We will be live-blogging this once-in-a-lifetime event straight from DSN headquarters (location undisclosed) and will bring you such provocative tidbits of information as depth to frozen tissue, temperature of the tank, rigidity of the mantle, and other important information as we notified about them. Be the first in the blogosphere to know the time of first cut! Stay tuned to DSN for more details, April 27-May 2 (coincidentally Coral Week at DSN!)

Press release.

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Comments

  1. #1 kevindwhite
    April 17, 2008

    This is at least 7 different types of WIN!

  2. #2 keely
    April 17, 2008

    Now, the only thing you didn’t mention is how exactly it is that we can actually get ring-side seats to watch, live and in person. Or even, oh please tell me they need help with the dissection and there’s somewhere we can volunteer for this honour? Can you, with all your clout somehow get me in on this!?!?!?

    …Please?? Please?? I’ll give you barnacles as a gift??

  3. #3 Florence Liger
    April 22, 2008

    Unfortunately, no public will be admitted in the dissection room, which is why we are webcasting it. We will also be blogging it (as live as possible). You can already read some stories about its preparation here: http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/colossal-squid/

  4. #4 Florence Liger
    May 4, 2008

    A big thanks for having talked about this event on your blog. The response from the community has been awesome and we had a great time :)

    We are now jumping to our next event, starting tomorrow morning: the examination of a pygmy right whale. There will be no video this time, but we will blog it live. It is going to last around 3 days. Stay tuned:
    http://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/category/pygmy-right-whale/

  5. #5 Hiram
    July 16, 2009

    Mahlegeth is not suffering. But Mahlegeth will devour us all.

  6. #6 Hiram
    July 16, 2009

    Mahlegeth is not suffering. But Mahlegeth will devour us all.

  7. #7 check
    November 19, 2009

    wht did u inject the squid after it started to decay during the dissection….