The etiquette of squid-eating
Category: Cephalopods
Posted on: September 22, 2007 10:09 AM, by PZ Myers
Tantalizing news: somewhere out there in the wide, wide world is a video of a pilot whale eating a large squid.
"We looked hard and saw a tentacle of a squid hanging from its mouth and there were other pieces of squid stuck to the whale's body. It made a number of brusque movements on its side in the water to free the tentacle to eat it — and there we were filming and photographing it all."
If you follow TONMO you already know it's probably not a giant squid, as the article breathlessly reports, but it's still going to be interesting because whales that feed on squid do have a problem: the tentacles are clingy and in many of the large species are equipped with sharp hooks — and they writhe and grip even when the animal is dead. How whales manage a struggling meal is going to be something of interest.
Arrr, I nail a virtual doubloon to the mast of the good ship Pharyngula—first matey to spot the whale and his prey gets it.





Comments
It's pretty straight forward, isn't it? Don't drop any of the rings on your shirt. Choose a nice Sangiovese to accompany it. And preferably at a table that overlooks the sea.
;-)
Posted by: Russell | September 22, 2007 10:26 AM
"Aye, my hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me.... He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it...."
That, and he eats squid.
Posted by: Eveningsun | September 22, 2007 11:04 AM
You could try to contact the organization that filmed the whale:
http://www.cetaceos.org/main_contactar.html
Posted by: M. Gemmill | September 22, 2007 2:50 PM
Down with vertabrate chauvinism: Octopus eats shark.
My two-year-old grandnephew's favorite video.
Posted by: John Emerson | September 22, 2007 3:54 PM
>and they writhe and grip even when the animal is dead.
Though I hear that breading them and deep frying them solves this problem.
Posted by: Mark | September 22, 2007 10:26 PM