Who wouldn’t love a story about real-life leviathans tearing at each other in the prehistoric deep? The famous giant squid vs. McMenamin had no evidence – no body impression, gladius, or other trace of Mesozoic squid – but news services enthusiastically regurgitated his unsubstantiated claims of the artistic Kraken. Geologist Mark McMenamin tapped into this tantalizing imagery last year when he presented his bullshit idea that a hyper-intelligent Triassic squid drowned giant ichthyosaurs and rearranged the bones of the deceased “fish lizards” into a self portrait. That’s a big squid, and it’s certainly tempting to think of the cephalopod wrapping its arms around the lizard-like mosasaurs and long-necked plesiosaurs, dragging the air-breathing reptiles into the abyss. Let’s run with the hypothesis that Tusoteuthis was about 25 feet long, though. This translates to a relatively squat squid with shorter arms than previous, slimmer versions. While it's easy to think that Tusoteuthis was more or less like today’s giant squid Architeuthis, Everhart suspects that the Cretaceous form is more closely related to the bizarre, deep-sea Vampyrotheuthis. Our picture of the Cretaceous squid depends on how we restore its soft tissues, and that’s constrained by where Tusoteuthis falls in the teuthid evolutionary tree. Nevertheless, we don’t really know whether Tusoteuthis was any longer or shorter than the 25 foot estimate. It’s this bit of internal scaffolding that has let paleontologists track the giant squid of Kansas. This structure – vaguely spoon-shaped, with a rod leading into a rounded expansion – supports the mantle of the squid and anchors some of the animal’s muscles. The nipping, bird-like beak is one squid organ resilient enough to enter the fossil record, and the other, called a gladius, is at the core of the squid’s body. Only cases of truly exceptional preservation can provide researchers with a near-complete view of primordial cephalopods.Īll the same, paleontologists have been able to identify the teuthids of different eras thanks to certain chitinous hard parts of squid bodies. Even then, the soft parts of shelled cephalopods rotted away, leaving us with only an outline of what the mollusks were like in life. Unlike their hard-shelled cousins the ammonoids, ancient squid lacked the hard, coiled shells that were so amenable to preservation. But in their heyday, these huge cephalopods lived and died alongside equally fantastic marine reptiles that ruled North America’s shallow inland sea. What little remains of them is petrified in the rock. Truth be told, the big squid have been dead for about 80 million years. They are not pickled museum specimens rescued from a Newfoundland beach, nor, b-movie schlock like Eye of the Beast aside, are they monsters that found their way into freshwater lakes. The animals taste with their tentacles, he said, and seemed to be touching him and his wet suit to determine if he was edible.There are giant squid in Kansas. Roger Uzun, a veteran scuba diver and amateur underwater videographer, swam with a swarm of the creatures for about 20 minutes and said they appeared more curious than aggressive. The squid are too deep to bother swimmers and surfers, but many experienced divers say they are staying out of the surf until the sea creatures move on. "For all I know, I'm missing the experience of a lifetime." "I wouldn't go into the water with them for the same reason I wouldn't walk into a pride of lions on the Serengeti," said Mike Bear, a local diver. The squid, which is most commonly found in deep water from California to the bottom of south America, hunts in schools of up to 1,200 individuals, can swim up to 15 mph and can skim over the water to escape predators. Divers wanting to observe the creatures often bait the water, use a metal viewing cage or wear chainmail to avoid being lashed by the creature's tentacles. The so-called Humboldt squid, named after the current in the eastern Pacific, have been known to attack humans and are nicknamed "red devils" for their rust-red colouring and mean streak. Stories of close encounters with the squid have chased many divers out of the water and created a whirlwind of excitement among those torn between their personal safety and the once-in-a-lifetime chance to swim with the deep-sea giants.
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