JNC Sea Grant 



6W. 

 \ up 



V 



North 



March, 1984 



coast Swatch 



Squid: from tall tales to the table 



*0 ^ 



^ * ft 



:4f stffc A 



n 



From the window of the Nautilus, a giant squid 



It swam backward toward the 

 "Nautilus" and at great speed, 

 watching us the while with its huge 

 staring green eyes. Its eight arms 

 (or rather, feet) were twice as long 

 as its body and twisted like the 

 snakes in the Furies' hair. . . . The 

 monster's mouth, a horned beak 

 like a parrot's, opened and shut ver- 

 tically. Its tongue was of horn sub- 

 stance and furnished with several 

 rows of pointed teeth. It came forth 

 quivering from this veritable pair of 

 shears. What a freak of nature it 

 seemed , a bird's beak on a 

 mollusk! — Jules Verne, Twenty 

 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea 



"It was an immense cuttlefish," 

 writes Jules Verne. But modern biology 

 would identify this freakish creature, 

 trying its best to devour the Nautilus, 

 as a giant squid. And indeed, the yarns 

 of mariners and the literature of poets 

 and writers throughout the ages are pep- 

 pered with accounts of the giant squid — 

 often endowed with a ferocious nature 

 and the strength to pull large vessels 

 beneath the waves. 



While writers and mariners enhanced 

 the size, ferocity and abilities of the 

 squid, the real life and biology of the 

 squid may be stranger than fiction. Af- 

 ter all, the squid possesses eyes like a 



Continued on next page 



