Kraken: Fact or Fiction? (Creature Scene Investigation)

creature scene investigation

Kraken Fact or Fiction?

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creature scene investigation Bigfoot: Fact or Fiction? Giant Anaconda and Other Cryptids: Fact or Fiction? Kraken: Fact or Fiction? Loch Ness Monster: Fact or Fiction? Megalodon: Fact or Fiction? Mokele-mbembe: Fact or Fiction?

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creature scene investigation

Kraken Fact or Fiction?

Rick Emmer

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KRAKEN: FACT OR FICTION? Copyright © 2010 by Infobase Publishing All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact: Chelsea House An imprint of Infobase Publishing 132 West 31st Street New York, NY 10001 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Emmer, Rick. Kraken: fact or fiction? / by Rick Emmer. p. cm. — (Creature scene investigation) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-7910-9780-9 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4381-3116-0 (e-book) 1. Kraken—Juvenile literature. 2. Giant squids—Juvenile literature. I. Title. II. Series. QL89.2.K73E46 2010 001.944—dc22 2009011467 Chelsea House books are available at special discounts when purchased in bulk quantities for businesses, associations, institutions, or sales promotions. Please call our Special Sales Department in New York at (212) 967-8800 or (800) 322-8755. You can find Chelsea House on the World Wide Web at http://www.chelseahouse.com. Text design by James Scotto-Lavino, Erik Lindstrom Cover design by Takeshi Takahashi Composition by EJB Publishing Services Cover printed by Bang Printing, Brainerd, MN Book printed and bound by Bang Printing, Brainerd, MN Date Printed: January 2010 Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is printed on acid-free paper. All links and Web addresses were checked and verified to be correct at the time of publication. Because of the dynamic nature of the Web, some addresses and links may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid.

Contents Preface

6



The Mighty Kraken

9

Beast vs. Behemoth

25

Birth of a Legend

37

Fiction Meets Fact

53

Cousins of the Kraken

66

Beast vs. Boat

80

Final Report on the Kraken

88

Glossary

92

Bibliography

96

Further Resources

100

Picture Credits

102

Index

103

About the Author

108

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Preface

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elcome to Creature Scene Investigation: The Science of Cryptozoology, the series devoted to the science of cryptozoology. Bernard Heuvelmans, a French scientist, invented that word 50 years ago. It is a combination of the words kryptos (Greek for “hidden”) and zoology, the scientific study of animals. So, cryptozoology is the study of “hidden” animals, or cryptids, which are animals that some people believe may exist, even though it is not yet proven. Just how does a person prove that a particular cryptid exists? Dedicated cryptozoologists (the scientists who study cryptozoology) follow a long, two-step process as they search for cryptids. First, they gather as much information about their animal as they can. The most important sources of information are people who live near where the cryptid supposedly lives. These people are most familiar with the animal and the stories about it. So, for example, if cryptozoologists want to find out about the Loch Ness Monster, they must ask the people who live around Loch Ness, a lake in Scotland where the monster was sighted. If they want to learn about Bigfoot, they should talk to people who found its footprints or took its photo. A cryptozoologist carefully examines all of this information. This is important because it helps the scientist identify and rule out some stories that might be mistakes or lies. The remaining information can then be used to produce a clear scientific description of the cryptid in question. It might even lead to solid proof that the cryptid exists. Second, a cryptozoologist takes the results of his or her research and goes into the field to look for solid evidence that the cryptid really exists. The best possible evidence would be 6

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an actual specimen—maybe even a live one. Short of that, a combination of good videos, photographs, footprints, body parts (bones and teeth, for example), and other clues can make a strong case for a cryptid’s existence. In this way, the science of cryptozoology is a lot like forensics, the science made famous by all of those crime investigation shows on TV. The goal of forensics detectives is to use the evidence they find to catch a criminal. The goal of cryptozoologists is to catch a cryptid—or at least to find solid evidence that it really exists. Some cryptids have become world-famous. The most famous ones of all are probably the legendary Loch Ness Monster of Scotland and the apelike Bigfoot of the United States. There are many other cryptids out there, too. At least, some people think so. This series explores the legends and lore—the facts and the fiction—behind the most popular of all of the cryptids: the gigantic shark known as Megalodon, Kraken the monster squid, an African dinosaur called Mokele-mbembe, the Loch Ness Monster, and Bigfoot. This series also takes a look at some lesser-known but equally fascinating cryptids from around the world:

• the mysterious, blood-sucking Chupacabras, or

“goat sucker,” from the Caribbean, Mexico, and South America

• the Sucuriju, a giant anaconda snake from South America

• Megalania, the gigantic monitor lizard from Australia

• the Ropen and Kongamato, prehistoric flying reptiles from Africa and the island of New Guinea

• the thylacine, or Tasmanian wolf, from the island of Tasmania

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• the Ri, a mermaidlike creature from the waters of New Guinea

• the thunderbird, a giant vulture from western North America

Some cryptids, such as dinosaurs like Mokele-mbembe, are animals already known to science. These animals are thought to have become extinct. Some people, however, believe that these animals are still alive in lands that are difficult for most humans to reach. Other cryptids, such as the giant anaconda snake, are simply unusually large (or, in some cases, unusually small) versions of modern animals. And yet other cryptids, such as the Chupacabras, appear to be animals right out of a science fiction movie, totally unlike anything known to modern science. As cryptozoologists search for these unusual animals, they keep in mind a couple of slogans. The first is, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t true.” The second is, “Absence of proof is not proof of absence.” The meaning of these slogans will become clear as you observe how cryptozoologists analyze and interpret the evidence they gather in their search for these awesome animals.

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1 The Mighty Kraken It was about eleven o’clock when Ned Land drew my attention to a formidable wriggling movement among the long seaweed. “Those are the kind of caves squid live in,” I said, “and I wouldn’t be surprised to see several of these monsters.” ‘What!” exclaimed Conseil. “Squid—mere squid from the class of cephalopods!” “No,” I said, “giant squid. But Ned must have made some mistake, for I don’t see anything.” “That’s too bad,” said Conseil. “I’d like to come face to face with one of these giant squid I’ve heard so much about, and which can drag ships down to the bottom. They’re called kraken, I think.” —Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea 9

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he Kraken: It is the perfect name for the legendary giant squid, one of the most terrifying creatures ever to swim the seven seas. Pronounced “crock-en,” the word oozes a feeling of power, a sense of mystery, an aura of danger. The Kraken is indeed powerful; it’s one of the biggest and strongest predators in the ocean. It’s certainly mysterious; while scientists know it’s real, they know very little about it. It can indeed be dangerous; the prospect of encountering one of these beasts in the open ocean has spawned fear in the heart of many a seafaring sailor. Can the legendary Kraken really be the monster it is cracked up to be? Stories such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Peter Benchley’s Beast certainly would have you think so. (Benchley’s big ol’ white shark in his novel Jaws would be mincemeat in the arms of his Beast.) The Kraken certainly looks scary enough to fit the part. It is armed with sucker-studded, snakelike arms and tentacles encircling a hideous beak powerful enough to sever heavy-gauge steel wire. The Kraken also has enormous, evil-looking eyes, making it one nightmarish denizen of the deep. Still, what you see isn’t always what you get. As we explore the world of the giant squid and the ancient legend it spawned, it is important to separate fact from fiction if the truth about this magnificent yet maligned animal is to be brought to light. Unlike most other legendary cryptids, the flesh-and-blood Kraken has been known to science for some time. Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster have yet to leave behind any physical remains—not even the tiniest tip of a toenail—but the Kraken has been much more accommodating. Many specimens of giant squid have come into the hands of scientists, often in the form of dead animals washed ashore on ocean beaches. In addition, countless bits and pieces of arms, tentacles, beaks, and other body parts were collected from the stomachs of sperm whales

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The legendary Kraken was a nightmarish sea monster that struck fear in the heart of many a seafaring sailor. The Kraken was often described as an enormous squid or octopus.

captured and slaughtered back in the heyday of the whaling industry. Thus, the Kraken can no longer be considered a cryptid in the strict sense of the word. In fact, it’s one of the most notable success stories in people’s never-ending search for unknown animals. That said, you can only learn so much about an animal by studying its remains. To the world of science, the Kraken is in many ways still an unknown animal. You could say it’s a cryptic ex-cryptid! In an effort to effectively explore the world of the giant squid, and to determine whether the animal lives up to its

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sinister reputation, it is necessary to learn as much as possible about the creature’s unusual anatomy and lifestyle. Armed with this knowledge—incomplete though it may be—we will then be prepared to take a critical look at the legend and lore surrounding the giant squid. This is an important part of the investigation because if the facts don’t fit the stories, we will have to consider the possibility that something else, some other unknown animal, is still lurking out there, waiting, like Bigfoot and Nessie, to be discovered. With that in mind, it’s time for us to “get crackin’” on the first phase of the investigation: a detailed examination of the giant squid, from one end to the other—or, to be anatomically correct, from the tentacles to tail fin.

Cephalopods, Decapods, and Octopods

The giant squid is quite possibly the largest invertebrate on earth. Scientists refer to this animal by its scientific name, Architeuthis. It is Latin for “extreme squid,” an appropriate name for this extremely large—up to 60 feet (18.3 meters) long, including the tentacles—cousin of the common garden slug. Squid are mollusks, a diverse group of invertebrates that includes not only slugs and the Kraken, but also snails, clams, and oysters, as well as the squid’s closest relatives, the cuttlefish and octopus. Despite the wide variety of shapes, sizes, and lifestyles of mollusks, the majority of the members of this group share several characteristics. They are bilaterally symmetrical, meaning that they have left and right halves that are mirror images of each other. All mollusks have a distinct head, a muscular foot used for locomotion (a slug, for example, glides over the ground on its foot, leaving a slime trail as it goes), and a body, or mantle, containing the digestive, reproductive, and respiratory systems, along with the brain and the heart.

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The Perfect Name

As mentioned above, the squid is closely related to the octopus and the cuttlefish. These three animals, along with the enchanting chambered nautilus, belong to the group of mollusks known as cephalopods. Cephalopod means “head foot” in Greek and is the perfect name for these animals, because their appendages (nowadays known as arms and tentacles, not feet—even though these complex structures are derived from the same muscle as the snail’s foot) are attached directly to their head. The nautilus shows its evolutionary relationship to snails and clams by possessing a hard, protective, calcium-laden shell. Cuttlefish have a hard shell, too, but it is smaller and

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There are four types of cephalopod: (1) chambered nautilus, (2) cuttlefish, (3) octopus, and (4) squid.

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less elaborate and is buried within the mantle, where it stiffens the body and provides an attachment site for muscles. In the squid, this internal shell is reduced even further. Called a gladius or pen, it is flexible and so thin in small specimens that you can see right through it. Still, it offers support to the organs and muscles within the mantle. Finally, in the octopus, there is no shell at all. Unlike squid and cuttlefish, which need an internal support structure to maintain their streamlined shape as they dart this way and that through the water, the octopus has a round, baglike mantle that needs no support. This allows the bottomdwelling mollusk to squeeze through impossibly tight nooks and crannies in rocks and corals as it searches for crabs and other tasty morsels. Such movement would be impossible if the octopus were as stiff-bodied as a squid. How many arms do cephalopods have? It depends. The nautilus has a whole slew of them, 90 on average. Squid and cuttlefish have 10, which is why they are classified as decapods (deca means “10” in Greek). As its name implies, the octopus has 8 arms (octo means “eight”) and is technically known as an octopod. Regardless of how many arms a cephalopod has, however, they all serve the same purpose: to catch prey. One look at any cephalopod tells you that it’s a predator through and through. (This is to be expected; after all, the Kraken wouldn’t be a nightmarish sea monster if it dined on seaweed.)

The Anatomy of a Nightmare

Just what does a Kraken look like? If you think it looks a bit like an uprooted tree trunk, you’re not alone. In fact, many people believe the name Kraken to be an old Scandinavian term that refers to that very object. Norwegian fishermen from long ago are credited with giving this name to these otherworldly, treelike creatures when they encountered them

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Giant squid carcasses sometimes wash up on ocean beaches. This specimen was discovered many years ago on the coast of New Zealand.

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at sea. (Not everyone agrees with this etymology; some think that Kraken simply means “sea monster.”) The Kraken’s “roots” are obviously its 10 appendages: eight arms and two tentacles. The arms of a large Kraken are nearly 10 feet (3 m) long. They are about the combined length of the head and the mantle, and are thick and very muscular. The tentacles, on the other hand, are much longer (reaching a maximum length of nearly 33 feet [10 m]), thinner, and less muscular. They are also very elastic, like giant rubber bands. While the eight muscular arms gradually taper to a blunt point at the tip, the ends of the skinny tentacles expand to form flat, rounded clubs.

The club at the end of a giant squid’s tentacle is armed with many suckers rimmed with toothlike projections. The suckers and their “teeth” help the squid capture and hold its prey.

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The Kraken’s arms and tentacles are loaded with suckers on their inner surface. The largest suckers are found on the clubs and are up to 2 inches (5.2 centimeters) in diameter. Each sucker is attached to its arm or tentacle by a stalklike structure called a pedicle. The squid can control each of its thousands of suckers independently. That would be like having many fingers ranging up and down the insides of your arms, and being able to control each one separately from all the others. A Kraken’s suckers are diabolical devices. Around the rim of each one is a ring of tiny serrated “teeth” made of chitin, the same substance found in the tough shell of a lobster. When a giant squid’s suckers latch onto a target, the teeth dig into the surface, guaranteeing a sure grip on the hapless victim. No prey (usually small fish or squid) can slip away from a grasp like that.

The Head of the Kraken

Smack dab in the middle of the arms and tentacles is the Kraken’s hideous beak. Try to picture a razor-sharp, upsidedown parrot’s beak as big as a man’s fist, colored black as night. Stick it on an extendable, flexible neck (such as those telescoping jaws in the mouth of the monster from the movie Alien), and place it in the middle of that ring of writhing arms and tentacles. The result? The nightmarish business end of a hungry Kraken. (No wonder this beast has been the bad guy in so many monster movies.) Compared with the gluttonous great white shark, which gulps down huge mouthfuls of food without chewing first, the giant squid is a surprisingly dainty feeder. Because it has a narrow esophagus, it must chew its food thoroughly before swallowing. Actually, it doesn’t so much chew the food as shred it—to bits. Squid have a long, skinny, sandpapery tongue, or radula, that is covered with sharp little teeth.

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The fist-sized beak of the giant squid can cut a big chunk of meat out of the squid’s prey. The giant octopus has a beak that is similar to that of the giant squid. By rasping or grinding the radula against the chunk of food bitten off by the beak, the squid transforms the food into a mass of shredded flesh that can easily pass from the mouth, or buccal cavity, into the esophagus. If the Kraken’s arms, tentacles, suckers, and beak aren’t enough to give you goose bumps, its eyes surely will. The round eye of a squid, complete with iris, lens, and retina, looks eerily human. It functions very much like a human eye, too, even though the squid is an invertebrate, a socalled “lower” animal. Yet, here’s the incredible part: An adult giant squid with an 8-foot-long (2.4-m) mantle has eyes as big around as dinner plates—up to 10 inches (25 cm) or more in diameter. That makes them among the largest

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eyes in the entire animal kingdom. Positioned opposite each other on the sides of the head—not next to each other on top of the head, the way artists sometimes portray them—these monstrous eyes allow the Kraken to see in any direction as it looks for prey in deep, dark water where virtually no light penetrates from the surface. In the center of the head, located between the eyes and protected by a cartilaginous skull, is the squid’s brain, the headquarters of its nervous system. The Kraken’s brain consists of a collection of clusters of nerves called ganglia. Nerves extend from each ganglion to different parts of the body. For example, the optical ganglia innervate the eyes, the buccal ganglion innervates the mouth, and the visceral ganglion innervates many of the organs, or viscera, within the squid’s mantle. While the giant squid’s brain is nowhere near as complex as the human brain, it is still an extremely complicated structure. Also located within the skull is a pair of statocysts, small fluid-filled vesicles that contain tiny calcium-laden particles called statoliths. Cells lining the inner surface of a statocyst contain wavy, hairlike structures that send nerve impulses to the brain when statoliths bump into them or come to rest on them as the squid moves, tips up or down, or hovers in place. The brain interprets the pattern of these hair cell impulses, allowing the squid to detect the downward pull of gravity and maintain a sense of balance.

The Monster’s Mantle

The Kraken’s head is attached to the mantle by a narrow neck, which is hidden from view by the collar, the front end of the mantle. A narrow, crescent-shaped opening between the neck and the collar leads to the interior of the mantle, where the bulk of the squid’s viscera (including the organs of the digestive, respiratory, reproductive, and circulatory sys-

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tems), along with a muscular, hoselike structure called the funnel, are located. Mantle space not occupied by viscera is filled with seawater and is called the mantle cavity. The funnel extends from the mantle cavity out through the gap between the Kraken’s neck and collar and can be pointed in any direction. By forcefully squirting water from the mantle cavity out through the funnel, the giant squid can propel itself forward, backward, or sideways. The circulatory system of a squid is as unusual as everything else about these animals. Water forced from the mantle cavity through the funnel first passes through a pair of feathery gills, each of which is supplied with its own  branchial heart. The branchial hearts pump blood through the gills, where life-sustaining oxygen is extracted from the water, and then to  yet another heart, the  median heart. (That’s right: There are three hearts in each and every squid.) Named the median heart because it is located between the branchial hearts, this heart  pumps the oxygen-rich blood it receives from the gills to the rest of the body. The digestive system of a squid is also a bit out of the ordinary. Although it has an esophagus, stomach, intestine, and rectum just like many other types of animal, squid have an extra feature: the ink sac. Located within the mantle, this balloon-shaped sac is connected to the rectum at the end of the digestive tract. When a squid is startled or attacked by a predator, the contents of its ink sac are emptied into the rectum, expelled into the mantle cavity, and pumped out of the body through the funnel. The ink forms a blobby shape that hovers in place and distracts the predator while the squid jets out of harm’s way. Also within the mantle are the reproductive organs. Sperm are produced in the testis of the male, and eggs are produced in the ovary of the female. The male Kraken transfers packets of sperm (spermatophores) to the female’s arms or body with his penis, which he sticks out through his

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funnel. No one knows how the female’s eggs are ultimately fertilized, and scientists are equally in the dark as to how and where she releases her eggs once fertilization has been achieved. Most near-shore species of squid deposit clusters

Let’s Get Technical: Buoyancy

B

uoyancy can be described as an object’s tendency to float. The object exhibits either positive, negative, or neutral buoyancy, depending on how its own density (its mass divided by its volume) compares with the density of the liquid in which it is placed. For example, an inflated beach ball floating on the surface of a swimming pool has positive buoyancy because it is less dense than the pool water; a rock that sinks to the bottom of a pond has negative buoyancy because it is denser than the pond water; and a fish hovering midwater has neutral buoyancy because it has the same density as the water. The density of seawater is approximately 1.02 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cm3). Therefore, for an object to be neutrally buoyant in seawater, it must also have a density of 1.02 g/cm3. Most types of squid have lots of sodium chloride (NaCl), the main component of seawater, in their tissues and have a density of about 1.05 g/cm3, somewhat higher than that of seawater. These squid must constantly swim in a slightly upward direction to keep from sinking. Architeuthis, however, has less-dense ammonium chloride (NH4Cl) in place of NaCl in its tissues. This reduces its tissue density to about 1.01 g/cm3, which is just a smidgen less than that of seawater. The Kraken’s body therefore exhibits positive buoyancy and tends to rise ever so slowly to the surface. The animal, however, can easily maintain its position in the water with little effort—the ideal situation for a predator that likes to hover in motionless ambush as it waits for prey to come swimming along.

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of eggs on the shallow sea floor, while deep-water species simply release their eggs in a jellylike sac that freely floats in the open water. Since the giant squid normally haunts deep water, teuthologists (scientists who study squid) think that it probably follows the jelly sac strategy. The mantle is shaped like a long cone that tapers to a blunt tip at the tail end. Squid have a pair of tail fins on either side of the tail. In some types of squid, the fins are large and well muscled and help propel the animal through the water. The Kraken’s fins are relatively small and weak and are probably used primarily to steer and stabilize the squid as it hovers or jets around with its funnel. One final peculiarity about the Kraken is the high concentration of ammonium chloride salt contained within its muscles and reddish brown skin. This dissolved salt makes the tissues of the giant squid slightly less dense than the surrounding seawater and therefore slightly buoyant. (It also makes the flesh of the squid smell and taste like amonia.) As a result, the squid will gently float up to the surface unless it actively resists this buoyancy with its funnel or fins. When a giant squid dies, its buoyant corpse will slowly rise to the surface and possibly wash ashore on a beach, to the horror and/ or fascination of any two-armed, two-legged, one-hearted— and probably sunburned—beachgoer who happens to stumble across it.

Putting It All Together

Now that we’re familiar with the form and function of the giant squid, it’s time to take a look at the whole animal as it might appear if we were able to sneak up on one—a feat that no one has yet accomplished—in the depths of open ocean. A hungry, 50-foot (15.2-m) adult Kraken is watching for prey; its rusty red color makes it virtually invisible in the nearly pitch-black water 300 feet (91.5 m) below the surface.

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The big squid hovers motionless, head tilted down, arms dangling beneath. A juvenile Kraken barely 8 feet (2.4 m) long draws near the big one, attracted to a school of fish streaking by below. Concentrating solely on its nearly invisible prey, whose silvery scales glitter with faint reflections in the feeble light, the younger squid does not notice the huge black ghost hovering above. The young squid swims closer, closer. Adjusting the angle of its funnel and slowly undulating its fins, the big Kraken carefully maneuvers, slowly turning toward the smaller squid, preparing to intercept it. The young Kraken slows down and pauses momentarily as it prepares to strike at the passing fish. That’s a big mistake. In a sudden movement too quick to follow, the big Kraken’s tentacles shoot forward and deftly latch on to the mantle of the smaller squid. Simultaneously retracting its tentacles and jetting forward with its funnel, the big Kraken quickly envelops the small one in its arms as hundreds of toothed suckers latch on to the hapless youngster. The arms draw the small squid toward the monster’s beak. The beak opens, and . . .  .

Close Call

Just as the smaller squid had failed to notice the big one as it pursued the fish, the big Kraken is too focused on its own prey to notice a big, dark shadow descending toward it from the surface. In the nick of time, the Kraken’s huge eyes detect the approaching shadow. The big squid releases its hold on the smaller one, squirts out a big blob of ink, and jets away to safety. A mighty sperm whale swoops through the inky cloud, scoops up the small Kraken in its jaws, and swallows the cephalopod as it heads back to the surface for a breath of fresh air. The big Kraken, sensing it is now out of danger, resumes the hunt. It swims to a new ambush site, stops, tilts, and waits.

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While the above scenario is pure fiction, it is based on fact. Analysis of the stomach contents of giant squid have occasionally turned up bits and pieces of smaller Kraken, evidence that Architeuthis is sometimes cannibalistic. And even though adult Kraken are among the largest predators in the ocean, they do have one mortal enemy, a much larger predator that appears to have a taste for ammonia—or at least doesn’t seem to mind the flavor. The sperm whale, largest predator on earth, eats squid of all types and sizes, even full-grown giant squid. The titanic battles between these two denizens of the deep are as legendary as the big cephalopod itself. An understanding of the relationship that exists between these mortal enemies is essential if we are going to learn as much as possible about the world of the giant squid. With that in mind, it’s time to take a look at the monster that makes a meal of the mighty Kraken: the even mightier sperm whale.

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2 Beast vs. Behemoth S

alt and pepper. Peanut butter and jelly. Fish and chips. Some things just seem to go together. In the world of animals, predator and prey are often as closely linked—at least in our minds—as bread and butter. Some well-known predator-prey combinations include lion and zebra; polar bear and seal; and mongoose and cobra. Perhaps not as well known, but equally deadly, is the combination of sperm whale and giant squid. It’s almost impossible to find any book about either one of these leviathans that doesn’t mention the titanic battles they wage against each other. It’s a fight to the death: the gigantic tooth-studded lower jaw of the whale versus the beak and sucker-studded arms and tentacles of the Kraken. In most cases, it’s easy to figure out which animal is the predator and which is the prey. Lion eats zebra, polar bear 25

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eats seal, mongoose eats cobra. What about the Kraken and the sperm whale? The stomach contents of sperm whales slaughtered by whalers prove that these whales often make a meal of the giant squid. But does the squid ever turn the tables and dine on filet of whale? According to legend, the Kraken has been known to attack large boats and drag them down to a watery grave. Could it do the same to the big whale? To answer this question, we’ll need to explore the world of the sperm whale and determine the nature of the feisty relationship that exists between the mammal and the mollusk.

The Spectacular Sperm Whale

Physeter, the sperm whale (also known by the French nickname “cachalot”), is considered to be the largest carnivore on earth—ever. Bigger than Tyrannosaurus Rex. Bigger even than Megalodon, the gigantic cousin of the great white shark (and the subject of another Creature Scene Investigation). At 100 feet (30 m) long, the blue whale grows larger, but it is a filter feeder that strains shrimp and other small animals from the water rather than hunting down prey, carnivore-style. An adult bull (male) sperm whale can reach 60 feet (18.3 m) in length and weigh up to 55 tons (50,000 kilograms). Sperm whale cows (females) are considerably smaller, maxing out at about two-thirds the length and half the weight of the bulls. (Before the whaling industry nearly exterminated sperm whales, bulls occasionally lived long enough to reach the astonishing length of 90 feet [27.4 m]; one New England museum has on display the 18-foot-long [5.5-m] lower jaw bone of one such behemoth.) Sperm whales are champion divers. They are known to reach depths of 1.9 miles (3.0 km) when hunting and can stay submerged for nearly 90 minutes. They are thus superbly adapted to hunt for deep-water prey such as the

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The sperm whale is the world’s largest predator. Bull sperm whales can reach 60 feet (18.3 m) in length and weigh up to 55 tons (50,000 kg).

Kraken and other squid. It therefore should come as no surprise that analysis of the stomach contents of slaughtered sperm whales has revealed that squid of many species make up the bulk of this whale’s diet. The sperm whale eats many more small squid than big squid. Up to 98% of the whale’s prey consists of squid only a few feet long, which means that only one in fifty squid caught by a whale is a big Kraken. Yet, because a full-grown Kraken is so much more massive than its tiny cousins—weighing up to several hundred pounds, compared with just a few pounds for a small squid—giant squid can account for up to one-half of the weight of the stomach contents of the whale.

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The powerful digestive juices of the sperm whale’s stomach make quick work of its cephalopod prey, except for one part: the beak. Tough, horny squid beaks are indigestible. Because a sperm whale can consume hundreds of squid in a single meal, and countless thousands over its lifetime, its gut would eventually fill up with squid beaks if the whale had no way to get rid of them. Fortunately, there is a way: ambergris. Ambergris is a waxy substance secreted by the intestine. Ambergris engulfs indigestible objects such as squid beaks, and when a sufficient amount accumulates, the ambergris and its indigestible contents are regurgitated—like a cat coughing up a huge hairball.

Let’s Get Technical: Ambergris

A

mbergris is an unusual substance that is legendary in its own right. Over the centuries, this waxy material has been used for a variety of purposes. Most importantly, it used to be a vital ingredient in expensive perfumes because it helped retain the perfume’s aroma. When dried and hardened, it could be shaped into beads and fancy jewelry. It was also used for certain medicinal purposes and for flavoring food. Ambergris was thus a valuable substance. Yet, because there was no known, dependable source for it—globs of it were simply found from time to time floating in the ocean or washed up on the beach—it commanded a high price. We now know what ambergris is and where it comes from. It is not, as had been suggested in earlier centuries, a marine mushroom, the fruit of corals, or a gummy secretion produced by the roots of trees growing along the coast. The whaling industry demonstrated convincingly that the source of ambergris was the gut of the sperm

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How to Catch a Squid

How does a sperm whale catch so many squid? No one really knows for sure. Because the whale hunts in the lightless depths of the ocean, nobody has ever witnessed the whale in action, but not for lack of trying. In 1997, Kraken expert Clyde Roper of the Smithsonian Institution led an ambitious expedition to the waters off New Zealand, a hot spot for Kraken-and-whale action. Using a battery of underwater video equipment, Roper hoped to catch whales in the act of feeding on squid. Unfortunately, the video cameras did not record any interactions between whales and squid, so Roper was unable to determine how sperm whales feed.

whale. When captured whales were cut open, whalers sometimes found huge masses of the stuff in the whales’ intestines. Careful inspection of fresh ambergris reveals bits and pieces of squid beaks and other indigestible objects, and chemical analysis of the material has shown that its main ingredient is a soft, waxy substance called ambrien. This wax is secreted in the whale’s intestine in response to the presence of irritating indigestible items. The ambergris coats the objects and eventually forms a big ball of wax, which the sperm whale then regurgitates. As this upchucked blob floats around in the ocean for months, sometimes years, it changes color from white to gray or black and becomes hard and crusty. While fresh ambergris smells like raw feces, aged ambergris actually gives off a pleasant, almost sweet aroma. It’s really pretty gross when you stop to think about it. The source of this long-coveted perfume ingredient and food additive is nothing more than stale sperm whale vomit.

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Ambergris is a waxy substance made in the sperm whale’s intestine. It coats and engulfs indigestible squid beaks. When a sufficient quantity of ambergris builds up in the whale’s gut, it is regurgitated.

Yet, a couple of things are certain. The sperm whale only cruises at 10 miles per hour (16 kilometers per hour), although it can briefly sprint at twice that speed. By comparison, some species of squid can zip along at 25 mph (40 km per hour) or more. Being so big, the whale isn’t anywhere near as maneuverable as its zig-zaggy prey, which can turn on a dime and jet away in an instant, in any direction. Even a relatively weak swimmer like the Kraken could probably outmaneuver a whale in close quarters. There’s just no way that a sperm whale could chase down hundreds of squid in one meal. It probably couldn’t capture a single one unless the squid were sick or injured.

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In the 1830s, British surgeon and naturalist Thomas Beale came up with an ingenious hypothesis to explain the sperm whale’s success at hunting squid. Noting that the whale’s lower jaw and teeth are white, unlike the rest of its dark gray body, Beale proposed that the whale dangles its jaw like a lure, its barely visible light color attracting the attention of hungry, sharp-eyed squid in the dim, deep water. Then, when squid congregate around the whale’s open mouth, the whale simply slams its jaw shut, chomping down on those squid not quick enough to zip out of the way. The whale then swallows its meal. The problem with this idea was that numerous well-fed sperm whales caught by whalers were either blind or had deformed jaws. It was not uncommon to find barnacles actually growing on whale teeth. All in all, it would appear that the jaw and its wicked teeth weren’t all that critical to catching food. Nonetheless, for the next century, Beale’s hypothesis was the best one anyone could come up with. In the 1900s, it was discovered that whales can navigate under water just like a submarine: by using sonar. Scientists determined that the complicated sonar system in a whale’s head allows it to echolocate under water. By sending out short pulses of high-energy sound and listening for echoes of these pulses as they reflect off objects in the water, whales can navigate and search for prey as well as if they were wearing night-vision goggles. Sperm whales have the most powerful sonar system of any whale. The huge domed head of this whale seems to be designed to produce extremely intense, focused sound pulses. This leads to an obvious question: Could the sperm whale use its amazing sonar as a weapon, producing powerful sound pulses that would stun or disorient a whole school of squid long enough for the whale to swim by and scoop them all up? Such action would certainly explain how the whale could capture so many squid at one feeding. It would

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also explain why the remains of small squid found in sperm whale stomachs rarely show puncture wounds in them. The whale might be using its toothy lower jaw more like tweezers than chompers, gently nabbing the stunned squid and positioning them in the mouth for swallowing. Only the largest of prey items, such as full-grown giant squid, would need to be dismembered before they were swallowed. Support for this “sonic stun gun” hypothesis surfaced in 2001 and again in 2003, when unusually large numbers of dead Kraken were discovered along the north coast of Spain. In both instances, the carcasses were discovered shortly after geologists had used an extremely powerful sonar unit to study the topography of the ocean bottom along the Bay of Biscay. When the dead squid were examined, their statocysts were found to be severely damaged, probably by the intense

The sperm whale and giant squid are mortal enemies. The whale often feeds on the giant cephalopod, but the squid can put up quite a fight and may sometimes turn the tables on its attacker.

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sound pulses produced by the sonar. Whether their smashed statocysts played a part in the animals’ deaths is uncertain, but this evidence clearly shows that extremely loud underwater sound pulses can damage a squid’s delicate statocysts and possibly disorient the cephalopod, either temporarily or permanently. If the whale does indeed use intense pulses of sound to temporarily debilitate prey, it would certainly explain how it is able to nab a crafty Kraken. Still, in some instances the Kraken might only be momentarily stunned, so that it recovers quickly enough to put up a fight when the whale grabs it.

Battle of the Brutes

Author, wildlife artist, and cryptozoologist Richard Ellis’s book The Search for the Giant Squid is chock full of stories about battles between the sperm whale and the Kraken. A few of these stories are summarized below. None of them is corroborated by photos, body parts, or any other hard evidence, so as readers are presented with these accounts, it is up to them to decide whether to take some of them with a grain of salt. Fortunately, there’s plenty of salt in seawater, and in any case, these stories make for a whale of a good read! Most of the time, whale and Kraken face off in the darkness of the deep ocean, but sometimes the whale comes to the surface, still locked in mortal combat with its intended dinner, so that it can get a much-needed breath of fresh air. Once in a while, shipbound humans are there to witness the spectacle. Judging from the number of Architeuthis beaks recovered from slaughtered sperm whales, most of these titanic topside tussles probably play out like the following one, as recorded by Norwegian naturalist Einar Koefoed in 1950: A Norwegian whaler once saw a large whale with the body of a giant squid between its teeth. . . . The giant

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squid had thrown its tentacles, as thick as ropes, around the head of the whale so that it could not open its jaws. Suddenly the squid let go and the whale submerged. After a while it surfaced again with the crushed squid in its mouth. Apparently, however, the whale doesn’t always win. One of the first documented whale versus Kraken battles was witnessed two centuries ago by the crew of the whaling ship Commodore Preble and was reported to Henry Cheever, the ship’s chaplain. From that report, Cheever wrote the following narrative, in which a huge Kraken appears to have given a sperm whale one heck of a thrashing: The serpent threw up its tail from twenty-five to thirty feet in a perpendicular direction, striking the whale by it with tremendous blows, rapidly repeated, which were distinctly heard, and very loud, for two or three minutes; then they both disappeared, . . . but after a few minutes reappeared . . . when the serpent’s fearful blows with his tail were repeated and clearly heard as before. . . . It was Captain West’s opinion that the whale was trying to escape, as he spouted but once at a time on coming to the surface, and the last time he appeared he went down before the serpent came up. Ellis points out that the serpent’s tail could hardly be anything but a Kraken’s tentacle. If the whalers were not wellversed in squid anatomy, a tentacle could understandably be mistaken for a huge snake (especially if the crew believed, as many people did back then, in sea serpents). The captain’s conclusion that the whale was fleeing the squid because it spouted only once each time it surfaced is based on sound reasoning. After a prolonged deep dive, sperm whales typically spout (“Thar she blows!”) several times in order to

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recharge their lungs with fresh air. If Cheever’s whale were indeed fleeing the squid, it would not have had the time to loll at the surface for a breathing break. Assuming that this story is accurate, one has to wonder how the hunter became the hunted. (This assumes that the whale was indeed the hunter. Since giant squid normally feed on small fish and squid, it’s not very likely that a Kraken, even a big one, would attack something as large and formidable as a sperm whale.) Perhaps the whale simply misjudged the size of the squid and ended up grappling with an opponent too big to subdue. Unfortunately, the final outcome of the battle was not witnessed, as both animals finally dove out of sight. The fact that the whale was not seen again, however, suggests that the Kraken may have drowned it. Another famous clash between whale and squid occurred off the coast of Brazil in 1875 and was witnessed by the captain and crew of the sailing ship Pauline. As reported by the captain, the Pauline came along a huge sea serpent (again, most likely a Kraken tentacle) which was wrapped around the body of a big, struggling sperm whale. The whale was eventually pulled below the surface and drowned. That makes two cases where a struggle at the surface resulted in an unexpected victory for the giant squid and a defeat for the sperm whale. If you stop to think about it, that outcome shouldn’t come as a total surprise. If a whale encounters and quickly dispatches a Kraken deep below the surface, the whale can eat it right then and there—why haul it to the surface if you don’t have to? Yet, if the squid recovers quickly enough from the whale’s sonic blast, it may manage to latch on to the whale’s head or body and engage its enemy in a deadly game of tug-o-war. If the fight turns into a lengthy standoff, the whale will eventually have to surface for fresh air or else risk drowning. If the struggle lasts too long, the whale will eventually tire. At this point, the advantage goes to the gill-breathing squid because it is in no danger

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of drowning. Still, if a big Kraken outlasts a whale, it just might be able to pull the weary animal below the surface and drown it.

The Next Phase

Now that we’ve studied the anatomy and behavior of the giant squid and taken a close look at the beast’s relationship with its archenemy the sperm whale, it’s time for this investigation to proceed to the next phase. Many tales have been spun about humans’ encounters with the Kraken, and it’s now time to take a critical look at them and find out whether the Kraken lives up to the legendary status that our species has bestowed upon it.

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3 Birth of a Legend T

he Kraken is truly a legendary beast—and quite possibly the most ancient of all cryptids. To find the first written account of an animal that fits the general description of the giant squid, one has to go back more than 2,500 years to the era of the ancient Greek empire and the writings of the poet Homer. Homer, who lived from roughly 800–750 b.c., is most famous for his two mythical epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad is an account of the Trojan War and centers around the trials and tribulations of the great warrior Achilles. After the Greeks sacked the city of Troy through the clever ruse of the Trojan horse, the victorious Greek soldiers returned to their homeland. One of these victorious warriors was Odysseus, the mastermind behind the big wooden horse. 37

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Odysseus was the king of Ithaca, an island in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. The Odyssey tells the tale of Odysseus as he sets sail and heads for home, meeting many challenges along the way. It is in Homer’s account that we are introduced to a mythical beast that is curiously similar to that myth-worthy but real-world beast we call the Kraken. The monstrous creature that Odysseus encounters, however, goes by a different name: Scylla.

Scylla

After he kills the giant one-eyed Cyclops, Odysseus encounters giant cannibals and endures a vicious storm conjured by the sea god Poseidon. He then faces yet one more challenge when he enters the treacherous Strait of Messina, a narrow finger of the sea that separates the tip of Italy from the island of Sicily. At a point where the strait is barely 2 miles (3.2 km) wide, its shores are inhabited by two terrible creatures. On the Sicilian side of the strait resides the monster Charybdis, whose open mouth creates huge whirlpools that engulf entire ships. The Italian side of the strait is home to six-headed Scylla, who lurks in a deep, rocky lair and is poised to snatch unwary seamen from their boats. In navigating this narrow neck of the strait, a sailor cannot avoid one monster without encountering the other, and Odysseus is faced with the difficult decision of choosing which monster to contend with. (Pondering such a dilemma, where neither solution is desirable, was once referred to as being stuck “between Scylla and Charybdis.” That expression has since morphed into “between a rock and a hard place.”) Not wanting to risk losing his ship, Odysseus chooses to take his chances with Scylla. After all, he already knows

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In the Odyssey, the hero Odysseus encountered the six-headed mythical monster Scylla when he passed through the Strait of Messina. Greek poet Homer may have used the giant squid as a model for his monster.

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what to expect, having been warned in advance by the goddess Circe: She has twelve feet—and all of them deformed— and six long necks: on each a vicious head with three rows of abundant, close-set teeth, replete with black death. Half her body’s kept deep in that cavern, but she thrusts her heads out of her horrid home. No sailor yet can boast of sailing past her cliff with ship intact: each of her mouths snatches a man from every passing prow. Feeling that to be forewarned is to be forearmed, and nudged onward by Circe’s wind, confident Odysseus steers his boat and crew into the strait. The great king and his men, however, are distracted by Charybdis’s whirlpool, and they are caught off-guard when Scylla strikes: But just then, Scylla seized six—the strongest—of my men; she snatched them from the hollow ship; and when I turned my eyes aside to seek my friends, all I could see were feet and hands on high. They called my name aloud for the last time and shrieked in anguish. There, at the door to her deep cavern, Scylla swallowed them as, in their horrid struggle, my dear friends stretched out to me their hands—the saddest sight my eyes have ever seen in all that I have suffered in my journeys on the sea.

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Odysseus escapes the fate of his six unfortunate companions and eventually makes his way back to Ithaca, where he is reunited with his family. After slaughtering a bunch of his enemies, Odysseus lives happily ever after.

A Fanciful Cephalopod

It’s easy to find similarities between Homer’s fanciful monster and real flesh-and-blood cephalopods. Scylla’s legs would correspond to an octopus’s or squid’s arms, while her long necks with toothy heads would correspond to tentacles with tooth-studded clubs. (The clubs of some species of squid— but not Architeuthis—are actually armed with chitinous, toothlike claws instead of suckers.) Her strategy of waiting in ambush in her lair is very like that of the reclusive, sneaky octopus. It’s hard to believe that Homer wasn’t thinking of cephalopods when he created Scylla. Some historians believe that he may have been influenced by stories of hair-raising encounters between giant squid and those brave, seafaring explorers, the Phoenicians, who are believed to have plied the Kraken-inhabited waters of the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Whether this was the case, we’ll never know. Still, it’s pretty clear that the notion of a mythical, monstrous cephalopod was no stranger to human imagination back in the heyday of the Greek empire.

Aristotle’s Teuthos and Pliny’s Pilferer

Homer wasn’t the only famous figure from ancient Greece to write about big cephalopods. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 b.c.) was a keen observer of nature and was well acquainted with the different types of squid that lived in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. In his monumental work History of Animals, Aristotle divided squid into two groups,

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Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle was apparently familiar with the giant squid. He gave this squid its own name, Teuthos, to separate it from all other squid, which he lumped together under the name Teuthis.

according to size: The smaller species he called Teuthis, and the really big species he called Teuthos. A few hundred years later, the physician Athenaeus made the additional observation that big ol’ Teuthos differed from its smaller relatives by its color: It was red. Aha! That combination of size and color can mean only one thing: Teuthos was the giant squid. It is uncertain whether Aristotle ever saw an actual specimen of the Kraken. It’s possible that he, like Homer, relied on descriptions provided by fishermen who encountered the animal on the high seas. He was apparently convinced, however, that the beast existed. He was right.

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A few hundred years later, another famous figure from ancient history became acquainted with giant cephalopods. Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, was a famous historian as well as an officer in the Roman cavalry. He was also a tireless naturalist, always trying to learn the ways of Mother Nature. In fact, his endless curiosity was his final undoing. He was killed when he got too close to Mount Vesuvius when it erupted in the year a.d. 79. Like Aristotle, Pliny was a prolific writer; he wrote a volume titled Natural History, which was a massive encyclopedia about the natural sciences. One rather odd entry he made in this work is especially pertinent to our study of the Kraken: a reference to a sneaky cephalopod that stole fish from a barrel. According to Pliny’s source, a fellow officer in the Roman army, a creature of some sort kept stealing salted fish from fishermen’s barrels stashed at shore’s edge in the Spanish town of Carteia, located near the Strait of Gibraltar. In order to deter the thief, the fishermen erected a tall fence as a barrier. However, the creature outwitted the fishermen by climbing a nearby tree, up and over the fence. One night the beast was caught in the act by the fishermen’s dogs, which raised a ruckus with their barking. The fishermen came running to see what the commotion was all about and discovered a monstrous, stinky cephalopod defending itself from the angry dogs. When the dogs got too close, the beast whipped them with its slender arms and whacked them with its thicker arms to keep them at bay. (Does that ring a bell? Recall Henry Cheever’s account of the beating that hapless sperm whale received at the “hand” of a Kraken.) The fishermen finally killed the creature with their spears and hacked off its appendages, which were up to 30 feet (9.1 m) long. Although the behavior of Pliny’s beast is more befitting an octopus than a squid—octopuses sometimes crawl

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out of the water for brief periods of time, but squid don’t— cryptozoologist Bernard Heuvelmans points out that certain details provided in Pliny’s account suggest that the monster, whose armless corpse weighed in at a staggering 660 pounds (300 kg), was a giant squid. First, Pliny’s source specifies two types of appendages: long, whiplike tentacles and shorter, more massive arms. Second, the description of the monster’s suckers matched more closely those of a squid, as they were described as deep, cup-shaped structures with stems. Octopus suckers, by comparison, are almost flat, and they do not have a stemlike pedicle attaching them to the arm. Unfortunately, we will never know with certainty the truthfulness of Pliny’s source and the true identity of the fish-stealer of Carteia, but there is enough factual detail in the telling of the story to suggest that it actually happened. At the very least, it is further evidence that people of bygone ages were familiar with gigantic cephalopods, both imaginary and real. Besides all that, the story adds an intriguing touch of mischief to the story of the Kraken.

Olaus Magnus and the Carta Marina

At this point in our pursuit of the legend of the giant squid, let’s shift focus to the north: away from Greece, Rome, and the balmy climate of the Mediterranean Sea to Norway, Iceland, and the frigid waters of the North Sea. Let’s review the facts about the land where the Kraken got its name—and even had its portrait painted. Olaus Magnus (1490–1557) was a famous Swedish historian and naturalist. He was also the Archbishop of Uppsala, appointed to that position by the pope. One of his most important accomplishments was his book Historia gentibus septentrionalibus (History of the People of the Northern Regions). According to Heuvelmans, one passage in this tome refers to “the horrible monsters which are found on the coast

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of Norway.” Here, Magnus describes black, whale-sized, horrible beasts that look like uprooted trees. Their heads are surrounded by “sharp points in all directions [arms?], and of long horns [tentacles?].” Their eyeballs, at more than 5 feet (1.6 m) in diameter, are absolutely humongous, even for a Kraken, and the diameter of their glowing red pupils is a whopping 24 inches (60 cm). The length of the head and outstretched arms of one of these monsters totals 23 feet (7 m). The body can be up to 29.5 feet (9 m) long, providing a total length of 52.5 feet (16 m), and that’s not counting the tentacles. Finally, Magnus claims that these beasts can pull large boats down to the bottom of the ocean. Heuvelmans points out that the relative proportions of the body parts in Magnus’s monsters are close to those of the giant squid, which leads him to believe that Magnus may have taken these measurements from an actual specimen that washed up on some Scandinavian beach. The fact that no giant squid body parts anywhere near these sizes have ever been found, however, suggests that the archbishop’s factual measurements were seasoned with a bit of fancy (either his own or that of his sources of information: the fishermen who plied the waters of the North Sea). Such a blending of the real with the unreal would also go a long way toward explaining those big, spooky, glowing red eyes.

A Map Decorated with Sea Monsters

Another feather in Magnus’s cap was his incredible map of Scandinavia, the Carta Marina. This masterpiece, a combination of cartography and fanciful art, measured more than 4 by 5 feet (1.2 by 1.7 m) and presented a surprisingly accurate map of northern Europe, including the countries of Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Iceland. What really sets this map apart from any ordinary map, however, are the incredibly detailed drawings of people and animals

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that dominate the whole map, top to bottom and side to side. Here we find everything from reindeer, bears, wolves, seals, and knights in armor—on horseback, no less—on terra firma

Olaus Magnus drew a detailed map of Scandinavia in the 1500s. This portion of the map shows sea monsters inhabiting the waters between Norway and Iceland; some of these fanciful creatures have features borrowed from the giant squid.

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(that is, dry land), to lobsters, crabs, whales, fishes, and fantastic sea monsters on the water. A few of the Carta Marina’s fanciful creatures are pertinent to the legend of the Kraken. One of these beasts is a big, red serpent, or “Sea Orm,” which is caught in the act of demolishing a sailing ship. One cannot help but make the connection between this red serpent and the rusty red tentacle of a giant squid. Then there are a couple of grotesque beasts that look like big-headed fishes on a bad hair day. Attached to their basically fishy bodies are huge heads adorned with manes and beards of wavy arms and spikes. The tapered shape of the bodies and the splayed appearance of the tails definitely mimic the body and fins of squid, and the manes and beards clearly imitate a cephalopod’s arms. It’s pretty clear that a squidlike creature was on the mind of Olaus Magnus when he created the sea monsters for his map.

The Amazing Island Beast

As big as Magnus’s 52½ -foot squid was, it was a pipsqueak compared with another mythical creature whose history became intertwined with the legend of the Kraken. By the 1700s, the scientific community was pretty well convinced that the freezing waters of the North Sea were home to an animal of impossibly large dimensions. Its modern English nickname is simply the “Island Beast.” According to Heuvelmans, however, it was originally known by a variety colorful of names, including Hafguse (a Danish word meaning “marine island covered with vegetation”) and Seekrabbe (meaning “Sea Crab”). Even Carolus Linnaeus, the famous Swedish botanist who invented binomial nomenclature, the modern two-name system for classifying organisms, temporarily gave official recognition to this huge creature by naming it Microcosmus

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marinus, which means “little world in the sea.” Always doubtful about its existence—he admitted he had never actually seen one—Linnaeus later decided that Microcosmus didn’t exist and deleted it from the list of organisms he compiled in his book Systema Naturae. One Danish scientist and clergyman, however, Bishop Erik Ludvigsen Pontopiddan (1698–1764), firmly believed in the existence of the Microcosmus. He had another name for the scary creature. That’s right: the Kraken. Just how big was Pontopiddan’s Kraken? Like Linnaeus, Pontopiddan never actually encountered one of these beasts—which is no surprise, as there were supposedly only two in existence—so he never had the opportunity to measure one. He had to rely on the stories of Danish fishermen who claimed to have encountered them. According to these amazing stories, the gigantic Kraken-beast was roughly circular in shape and had a diameter of nearly 2,000 feet (600 m). When it floated on the surface of the sea, its lumpy top side looked like a group of small islands surrounded by wavy structures that undulated in the water. It had numerous tentaclelike appendages, each as tall as the mast of a sailing ship, which were capable of dragging boats down under the surface when the monster submerged. Now for the really gross part: how the Kraken ate. This remarkable process, which only occurred once or twice a year, was signaled by the beast’s slow ascent from the ocean bottom toward the surface. Then, depending on which version of the story you believe, the beast lured unsuspecting hoards of fish into its cavernous mouth either by belching up sweet-smelling gas or by releasing irresistibly-perfumed waste materials into the water. The beast then engulfed all the fishes with its huge mouth, swallowed them in one big gulp, and slowly sank back down to the bottom of the sea. Obviously, the legend behind the Hafguse/Seekrabbe/ Microcosmus/Kraken must be taken with a grain of salt.

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Birth of a legend

49

Yet, there is often a hint of truth behind incredible myths and tall tales. The legend of the Island Beast is no exception. It’s all a matter of geography. Certain areas of the floor of the North Sea are hotbeds of volcanic activity. Submarine volcanoes that erupt from the sea floor belch out gases, super-hot water, and molten rock called magma, all of which creates a major disturbance of muck and bubbles on

Let’s Get Technical: Submarine Volcanoes

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he floor of the Atlantic Ocean is growing. It’s getting wider. Running north to south along the middle of the ocean floor is an underwater mountain range known as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This ridge follows a deep crack, or rift, in the Earth’s crust, through which magma rises from the underlying layer of Earth called the mantle (not to be confused with a squid’s mantle). As the magma cools and solidifies, it forms a type of rock called basalt. Much of this basalt slowly moves away from the central rift to the east or west, pushing the continents ahead of it. As a result, the Atlantic Ocean is widening at a rate of a couple of inches each year. The rest of the basalt accumulates along the sides of the rift, sometimes piling up high enough to form islands. Iceland is one such island. Not surprisingly, submarine volcanoes often form along the MidAtlantic Ridge. In 1963, one such volcano just south of Iceland erupted and formed the island of Surtsey. Several weeks later, another submarine volcano, just 1.6 miles (2.5 km) away from Surtsey, erupted. Named Surtla, this volcano stopped erupting before it reached the surface, so an island never formed. Wave action has since eroded about 75 feet (23 m) off the top of Surtla. It’s quite likely that Scandinavian fishermen and other seafarers occasionally encountered active volcanoes as they sailed the North Sea—perhaps about as often as the Island Beast rose from the depths to eat.

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Eruptions of submarine volcanoes, like the one that formed the island of Surtsey off the coast of Iceland in 1963, may have given rise to the myth of the Island Beast in Scandinavian folklore.

the surface. Sounds quite a bit like Pontopiddan’s Kraken, doesn’t it? Now what about those sweet-smelling wastes that attract fish? That’s easy: As Heuvelmans points out, those blobs are probably hunks of ambergris. Why would fish be attracted to this substance? Perhaps the ambergris contains a few bits and pieces of partially digested or decomposing, but still edible—to a hungry fish, at least—material mixed in with all those horny squid beaks. Big chunks of ambergris floating in the open ocean provide small fish the only cover or shelter

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available for miles around. All of those little fish flitting around would, in turn, attract larger predatory fish. But what about that cluster of islets with big tentacles waving in the air? According to Heuvelmans, each islet could be a giant squid, which would mean that the group of islets was actually a school of giant squid floating together at the surface. Unfortunately, no one knows whether Architeuthis forms schools the way other species of squid do. In fact, some researchers believe the giant squid is a solitary beast, except when it comes time to find a mate and breed. Now let’s see if we can tie all these observations together and make sense out of Pontopiddan’s fantastic Kraken. Suppose an eighteenth-century Norwegian fisherman unknowingly passes over an erupting submarine volcano. The eruption creates a bubbly, mucky blotch on the surface of the water, extending for hundreds of yards in every direction. Several giant squid that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time are fatally injured or killed by the eruption, and soon float to the surface (remember, squid are positively buoyant). Perhaps some of the survivors feebly wave their arms or tentacles about in the air in a futile attempt to submerge. A big hunk of ambergris, vomited earlier by a sperm whale passing through the area in pursuit of the squid, floats around on the surface near the muck and bubbles, where it attracts a bunch of fish seeking cover in the midst of the roiling water. The fisherman, who knows nothing about submarine volcanoes, is more than a little frightened by the scene before him and figures that some sort of gigantic sea monster must be responsible for everything he is witnessing. The next thing you know, the legend of the Island Beast is born. Moving to the next century, we come across the Island Beast in a most unexpected place: a poem. In 1830, the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson (famous for his

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“The Kraken,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Below the thunders of the upper deep, Far, far beneath the abysmal sea, His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep The Kraken sleepeth; faintest sunlights flee Above his shadowy sides: above him swell Huge sponges of millennial growth and height; And far away into the sickly light, From many a wondrous grot and secret cell Unnumber’d and enormous polypi Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green. There hath he lain for ages and will lie Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep, Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; Then once by man and angels to be seen, In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.

masterpiece The Charge of the Light Brigade), composed a fanciful sonnet titled, appropriately, “The Kraken.” Keep in mind that this was also the century in which science finally came face to face with another legendary being. It was not Scylla or the fish-thief of Carteia; not Olaus Magnus’s 52-foot, red-eyed monster or the Island Beast. In fact, by the end of the 1800s, the scientific community obtained enough evidence to prove that the source of those amazing, legendary creatures of the past was a real animal, equally amazing in its own right. It’s time to move on and take a look at that evidence—the evidence for Architeuthis: the real Kraken.

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4 Fiction Meets Fact J

ohannes Japetus Smith Steenstrup (1813–1897) was a Danish scientist. He was an ardent student of the natural world, and an expert naturalist who wrote hundreds of technical articles about everything from archaeology to zoology. Yet, his name is most often associated with the one animal that he almost single-handedly transformed from a mythological beast into that real-world denizen of the deep blue sea: the giant squid. Although he didn’t know it, Steenstrup was a top-notch cryptozoologist. (Cryptozoology didn’t become a recognized field of study until the twentieth century.) He tracked down every lead, dug up every clue, and gathered every bit of evidence he could find about the Kraken. He was bound and determined to learn as much as possible about the beast that 53

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his skeptical colleagues regarded as nothing more than a figment of overactive imaginations. His perseverance finally paid off. By 1854, after years of tireless evidence gathering, Steenstrup was ready to demonstrate to the world of science that the giant cephalopod really existed.

The Sea Monk

At a meeting of the Danish Natural History Society in 1854, Japetus Steenstrup presented his case for the existence of the giant squid. He presented his analysis of an unusual story he had come across during his squid search. This story, written in 1595, described a creature that had washed up on the beach near the Danish city of Copenhagen a half century earlier. This “curious fish” was just over 8 feet (2.4 m) long. Its front end looked like the shaved head of a man, and the rest of the body looked like it was covered by a red cloak of the sort worn by monks. Detailed pictures of this creature were drawn by two artists, and in both cases, the fanciful creature looked like a cross between a fish and a man—specifically, a monk dressed in a bulky red robe. As a result, this weird creature was dubbed the “Sea Monk.” Steenstrup was very knowledgeable about the anatomy of invertebrates, and when he saw the two pictures of the Sea Monk, he was convinced that he was looking at some sort of huge squid, many times larger than the ordinary little squid that fishermen sometimes caught in their nets. As Steenstrup interpreted the pictures, the Sea Monk’s arms were actually the big squid’s tentacles; its weird, finlike feet were the squid’s arms all jumbled together; its shaved head was actually the rounded tip of the squid’s smooth, shiny tail; and the red robe was simply the skin covering the squid’s mantle and fins. Steenstrup knew that his interpretation of the old pictures of the Sea Monk would hardly qualify as proof of the

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Fiction Meets Fact  55

existence of the giant cephalopod. His audience of doubting Thomases required more evidence than this. Steenstrup just happened to have that evidence with him. He had the beak of a real giant squid—a really big giant squid. Steenstrup had acquired this fist-sized beak from fishermen who found a monstrous carcass of an unidentified beast on a Danish beach. The fishermen had hacked up the rest of the body to use as fish bait, but they had saved the beak, which eventually made its way into Steenstrup’s hands. Now this was evidence! To make a long story short, Steenstrup’s presentation at the natural history society meeting, combined with numerous reports he had collected about huge, squidlike creatures that had been found stranded on Scandinavian beaches in the 1600s and 1700s, convinced many within the scientific community that the giant squid did indeed exist. Thus, the animal needed an official scientific name. In 1856, the Kraken finally received the recognition it deserved: It was given its scientific name, Architeuthis, courtesy of one Johannes Japetus Smith Steenstrup. (Throughout this text, the giant squid is referred to simply by its genus name, Architeuthis. The rules of binomial nomenclature, however, also demand a species name for every organism. Architeuthis is no exception. It has a species name; in fact, it has several species names. Taxonomists are scientists who classify organisms. These scientists have had a heck of a time trying to figure out just how many species of Architeuthis there are, because there is so much individual variation in the size and shape of body parts of all the squid that have been studied. Some scientists believe there may be a total of 19 species of Kraken roaming the world’s oceans. Others believe there are far fewer: perhaps only three, and maybe only one, named Architeuthis dux. For the purposes of this text, the genus name of the giant squid is all that is

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In 1861, the crew of the French warship Alecton captured a giant squid floating in the water near the Canary Islands (above). The animal was so heavy that the rope used to lasso it cut right through the squid’s mantle as it was hoisted out of the water. Only the tip of the tail made it on to the boat.

needed, since every Architeuthis, regardless of the species, is a Kraken.) Progress in the study of the real-life Kraken got off to a slow start. Following the naming of the giant squid in 1856, five years passed before any more useful Kraken evidence fell into the hands of scientists. When it did, the still somewhat skeptical scientific community made little use of it. In 1861, the French warship Alecton encountered a floating Kraken in the Canary Islands, a few hundred miles off the western coast of the African nation of Morocco. The ship’s crew killed the big squid, lassoed it with a rope just in front of the tail fins,

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Fiction Meets Fact  57

and tried to haul it aboard. The beast was so heavy, however, that the rope cut right through the flesh of the mantle, and only the tail tip and fins were salvaged. This meager remnant of the squid was sent, along with an incident report written by the Alecton’s commanding officer, to the French Academy of Science. The report was read at an academy meeting. Some scientists suggested that the tail piece belonged to an exceptionally large specimen of a common species of small squid, and that was pretty much the end of the matter until the 1870s.

Kraken in the New World

In the 1870s, something weird happened. Dead and dying Kraken started turning up in the western Atlantic, on and near the beaches of Newfoundland, Canada. During that decade, dozens of big Kraken washed ashore. No one knows for sure what led to all those strandings, but a number of scientists suspect that a shift in the flow pattern of the Labrador Current, a deep current of frigid water that runs along the east coast of Canada, may have been responsible. Twenty years after Japetus Steenstrup acquired his precious Kraken beak, and right in the middle of those Canadian strandings, an American teuthologist acquired an even more spectacular specimen: a whole Architeuthis tentacle. According to Kraken expert Richard Ellis, the story behind this tentacle is a bit cloudy, because there are at least three versions of just exactly what happened. Nevertheless, all three versions follow a similar story line. The most popular account places two Canadian fishermen, Theophilus Piccot and Daniel Squire, and Piccot’s 12-year-old son, Tom, aboard Piccot’s tiny fishing boat. While out fishing one day, the fishermen noticed something floating in the distance. Thinking it might be a sail or other debris from a shipwreck, they approached for a closer look.

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After they pulled up near the object, one of the men gaffed (hooked) it with his long-handled hook so that he could pull it right next to the boat. The object turned out to be a huge squid, and the moment it was gaffed, it sprang to life. It was enraged about being poked by the gaff and immediately attacked the boat, arms and tentacles flailing away as it tried to pull the boat and its occupants under the surface. The men grappled in vain against its writhing arms. Just when it looked as if the boat would tip over, young, quick-thinking Tom Piccot grabbed an ax and chopped off both of the squid’s tentacles.

Let’s Get Technical: The Labrador Current

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he Labrador Current is part of a frigid ocean current system that snakes its way southward along the coast of northeastern Canada. The northernmost portion of the current system, the Baffin Island Current, originates in Baffin Bay, which is between the west coast of Greenland and the northeastern shore of Canada’s Baffin Island. The icy, sub-zero current (salt dissolved in the water keeps it from freezing as it dips below 0°C [32°F], the freezing point of water) flows in a southeasterly direction, slithering along the coast of Labrador, where it becomes known as the Labrador Current. As the current continues southward, it loops around Newfoundland and heads toward Nova Scotia and the East Coast of the United States. The Labrador Current eventually encounters the warm waters of the north-flowing Gulf Stream. Heavy fog often develops where these two currents meet, creating dangerous, low-visibility weather conditions for boaters and fishermen. Giant squid prefer the colder water of the Labrador Current to the slightly warmer surrounding waters of the North Atlantic, so they

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The surprised squid immediately released its grip on the boat and sank out of view, behind a cloud of ink. In the second version of the story, Tom wasn’t on board, and one of the men hacked off the Kraken’s arms. In the third version, the elder Piccot was all alone aboard the boat and warded off the beast all by himself. In any case, one of the 19-foot (5.8-m) tentacles was salvaged, brought to shore, and handed over to the Reverend Moses Harvey (1820–1901), who took it to the local museum to be photographed. Harvey then had it delivered to a teuthologist named Addison Verrill, at Yale University in Connecticut.

try to stay within the confines of the current as it moves southward through the ocean. Yet, the current sometimes changes its path. Every 90 years or so, it veers closer to shore as it hugs the Canadian coast. Such was the case in the 1870s, when dozens of Kraken were beached on the shores of Newfoundland. Once again, in the 1960s, a dozen or so more giant squid washed ashore—not nearly as many as in the 1870s, but more than usual. Some scientists think that the giant squid follow the Labrador Current when it moves into the shallow nearshore waters, and then somehow become disoriented, disabled, or trapped in the shallow water. Eventually they become stranded along the shore. Perhaps they simply exhaust themselves trying to find their way back to deeper water, then float to the surface and wash onto the beach. If the wandering course of the Labrador Current is responsible for these Kraken strandings, there should be another stranding episode in the middle of this century—unless the current’s behavior changes over the coming decades as a result of global warming. Only time will tell.

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A few weeks later, Harvey paid some local fishermen $10 (a lot of money back then) for the head and arms of another Kraken—one that had become entangled in the fishermen’s net. Before sending this impressive specimen to Verrill, Harvey took a famous photograph of the monstrosity draped over an old-fashioned bathtub, the Kraken’s vicious beak clearly visible at the top. Addison Emery Verrill (1839–1926) was America’s version of Japetus Steenstrup. An expert on cephalopods, Verrill was fascinated by giant squid and examined every specimen he could get his hands on—quite a few, it turns out, thanks to his dependable supplier Harvey. He ended up writing more than two dozen scientific papers about Architeuthis. One of the biggest Kraken ever encountered was captured in 1878 along the Newfoundland coast in a bay with the quaint name of Thimble Tickle. Fishermen caught the squid in shallow water, dragged it ashore, and waited until it died. Unfortunately, Verrill never got a chance to examine this giant because the fishermen chopped it up and used it as dog meat. Harvey, however, saw the Kraken and estimated that it was a whopping 55 feet (16.8 m) long from tail to tentacle. Once the rash of squid strandings petered out in the 1880s, nothing very exciting happened in the world of Krakenology for quite a while—for more than a century, in fact. Then, in the 1990s, things got exciting again.

Squid From Down Under

In the late 1990s, Smithsonian teuthologist Clyde Roper and several colleagues undertook a series of Kraken-hunting expeditions off the shore of New Zealand. As previously mentioned, Roper tried to observe sperm whales in the act of catching and eating giant squid. In addition to lowering underwater cameras into sperm whale feeding grounds

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where the Kraken were thought to reside, Roper actually attached video cameras to the sides of some whales—“critter cams”—in the hopes of taping a whale in the act of hunting and feeding. Unfortunately, no giant squid were filmed on this trip, or any of the other New Zealand expeditions. More recently, fellow teuthologist Steve O’Shea, of New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, tried a different tactic: raising giant squid in captivity. He managed to catch some baby, fingernail-sized Kraken—technically known as paralarvae—in the hopes of growing them to respectable, boat-sinking size. O’Shea’s first attempt was unsuccessful because the delicate paralarvae did not adapt well to captivity and survived only a short while. Sooner or later, however, O’Shea may figure out the trick to rearing giant squid, and then scientists will be able to study Architeuthis up close and personal, from the comfort of a laboratory or public aquarium. Even though Roper and O’Shea were not successful in achieving their immediate goals, the publicity surrounding their efforts was highly successful in whetting the appetite of Kraken enthusiasts around the world. Soon they would all have something to feast on.

Smile, You’re on Critter Camera

At long last, in 2004, Japanese researchers accomplished what no one before them had been able to do: They photographed a large Kraken in the act of hunting, hundreds of feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. How these researchers went about their task was not a cross-your-fingers-and-take-ashot-in-the-dark kind of experiment. What they did was carefully planned and executed. Kraken hunters Tsunemi Kubodera, of Tokyo’s National Science Museum, and Kyoichi Mori, of the Ogasawara Whale Watching Association, spent a lot of time preparing for this

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adventure. First they analyzed data from several years’ worth of the Whale Watching Association’s observations of sperm whale distribution in Japanese waters. From their studies, Kubodera and Mori discovered that the whales congregate every year, from September through December, by a deep underwater canyon near the island of Chichijima, which is a few hundred miles southeast of Japan. Furthermore, they found out from other researchers that the squid-hunting sperm whales dive into the canyon to depths of 1,312 to 3,280 feet (400 to 1,000 m).

In 2004, Japanese Kraken hunters Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori photographed this 26-foot (8-m) Architeuthis attacking squid bait at a depth of 2,952 feet (900 m), using a “critter camera” attached to a nylon rope.

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Using this vital information, Kubodera and Mori positioned their equipment at the exact area where they figured the sperm whales were diving to catch giant squid. A weighted nylon rope, attached to a marker float, was lowered to a depth of 2,952 feet (900 m). An odor lure—a leaky bag full of smelly mashed shrimp—and two squid hooks, or jigs, baited with small squid were attached to the bottom of the rope. A downward-pointing underwater digital camera and strobe light were attached to the rope a few feet above the jigs and lure. The camera was set to take flash pictures of the jigs every 30 seconds once it reached the desired depth. On the morning of September 30, a good-sized Kraken attacked one of the squid baits. It snatched and ensnarled the bait in its tentacles. In the process, however, one of the Kraken’s tentacle clubs got hooked on the jig. After squirming around and yanking on the jig for more than four hours, the big squid finally broke free, leaving behind an 18-foot (5.5-m) tentacle dangling from the jig. When the tentacle was retrieved, it was carefully measured. Once the scientists determined the length of the club, they were able to estimate the length of the Kraken’s mantle by using the following formula: Mantle length (in millimeters) = (2.393) x (A) – 107.956, where A = the tentacle club length (in mm) The tentacle club was 720 mm long, so Mantle length = (2.393) x (720) – 107.956 = 1,615 mm or 1.615 m (5.3 feet). Kubodera and Mori plugged this value into another formula in order to calculate the total length of the Kraken, which turned out to be about 26 feet (8 m)—only half the length of the Thimble Tickle monster, but still quite impressive.

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In 2006, Tsuneme Kubodera videotaped the capture of this 24-foot (7.3-m) giant squid off the coast of a Japanese island. Unfortunately, the giant squid died in the process of being caught.

Homework Pays Off

Two years later, Kubodera scored again. This time, he videotaped the capture of a feisty, 24-foot-long (7.3-m) Kraken that he hooked on another squid-baited jig in the same patch of ocean as before. Was Kubodera just plain lucky? Sure, luck may have played a role in his success; luck is sometimes a big factor in the wacky world of science. Perhaps Kubodera crossed his fingers as his jig lines were lowered overboard. Still, even if he did, it’s obvious he also did his homework. He maximized his chances for success by finding the best time and place to go fishing for the Kraken.

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As technology improves and the scientific study of the giant squid continues, researchers will gradually learn more about this elusive creature. It’s sad in a way because the more we learn about Architeuthis, the less mysterious it will become. The extraordinary giant squid will slowly morph into the merely ordinary giant squid—if a 50-foot squid can ever be considered ordinary! Yet, there are plenty of other mysterious, monstrous cephalopods out there just waiting to make the acquaintance of cryptozoologists and other scientists; in fact, some of these creatures may have costarred with the giant squid in the making of the legend of the Kraken. Therefore, to get the full story behind the legend, we must now turn our attention to those equally awesome relatives of the giant squid.

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5 Cousins of the Kraken I

t’s obvious from writings from ancient civilizations and those of Olaus Magnus and Bishop Pontopiddan, as well as from the research of Japetus Steenstrup, that the giant squid played a major role in the birth and growth of the legend of the Kraken. Any cryptozoologist worth his or her salt, however, is obliged to consider the very real possibility that Architeuthis is not the only huge cephalopod responsible for Kraken sightings. Other monstrous “head foots” may have been sighted over the centuries and lumped together with the giant squid as the human imagination constructed the fearful, many-armed beast. It’s now time to investigate other super-sized cephalopods and to determine which, if any, of them might have contributed to the legend of the Kraken. This phase of the 66

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investigation begins with a look at another species of squid— a species that has been known to science for more than 80 years, but which only recently was discovered to grow big enough to rival the giant squid in size. In fact, it may even grow larger than Architeuthis. This other squid is no mere giant. It’s a colossus.

The Colossal Squid

In 1925, two tentacles from a previously unknown species of squid were recovered from the stomach of a sperm whale killed near the South Shetland Islands, which are in the Antarctic Ocean, between Antarctica and the southern tip of South America. These tentacles were unusual because their clubs were armed with little swiveling hooks instead of suckers. The longest tentacle was only 46 inches (118 cm) long, which wasn’t all that impressive, so the squid with the hook-studded clubs rather quietly entered the world of teuthological taxonomy under the tongue-twisting name of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni. Over the next 80 years, only a few additional specimens of this squid showed up, each one from the frigid ocean surrounding Antarctica. The largest of the three was captured in 2005; its mantle and tentacles were 8.2 feet long (2.5 m) and 7.5 feet long (2.30 m), respectively, and it weighed more than 330 pounds (150 kg). That was definitely impressive enough to grab the attention of both the scientific world and the public at large. This hefty specimen, however, was soon overshadowed by an even bigger catch.

Mesonychoteuthis: Architeuthis on Steroids

In 2007, newspapers throughout the world carried a story about the capture of a positively monstrous Mesonychoteuthis. One headline read: “Half-ton, 39-foot Colossal Squid

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In 2007, this massive, 1,091-pound (495-kg) colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) was captured by fishermen in the Antarctic Ocean. The fishermen took this somewhat murky image of the squid next to their boat.

Caught by Crew in Antarctic Waters.” The photo accompanying the article showed a huge squid floating at the surface beside the fishing boat. With its massive red mantle and fins and thick arms, it looked like an Architeuthis on steroids. According to the story, fishermen caught the squid when they hauled in their fishing line; the squid was munching away on a large fish that was hooked on the line, and when the beast was brought to the surface, the fishermen gaffed it, brought it on board, and froze it in a giant ice cube. The squid tipped the scales at 1,091 pounds (495 kg) and measured 33 feet (10 m) in length—a bit shorter than the 39 feet claimed in the headline, but still mighty impressive.

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It was because this species of squid was so much beefier than the rather slender giant squid that it was nicknamed “colossal squid.” It was much heavier than the largest known Architeuthis (a verified 605-pounder [175 kg]), and its beak was larger than any known Kraken beak. This was indeed one monster of a squid. One news report recorded teuthologist Steve O’Shea as saying that this squid “really has to be one of the most frightening predators out there. It’s without parallel in the oceans.” O’Shea’s colleague Kathrin Bolstad concurred: “This animal, armed as it is with the hooks and the beak that it has, not only is colossal in size but is going to be a phenomenal predator and something you are not going to want to meet in the water.” If that’s not impressive enough, this particular squid was not sexually mature when it was captured. That means it wasn’t full grown. According to O’Shea, it was at most two-thirds grown; had it reached full size, its mantle would have been more than 13 feet (4 m) long. (By comparison, the record length for an Architeuthis mantle is 7.4 feet [2.25 m].) If it’s so much bigger (and presumably more powerful) than Architeuthis, could the colossal Mesonychoteuthis be the true source of the legend of the boat-sinking Kraken? Probably not. Unlike the giant squid, which is found in oceans both north and south of the equator, the colossal squid has been found only in the coldest waters of the Southern Hemisphere, particularly around Antarctica, and ranges as far north only as the southern tips of Africa, South America, and New Zealand. It’s extremely unlikely that this squid would make its way to the equator, let alone to the balmy Mediterranean or the frigid North Atlantic. No, if there is another humongous squid out there sharing the title of Kraken, it’s not the colossal squid. To date, that’s the only known squid that grows as large as Architeuthis. Unless there’s another super-sized species of

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squid inhabiting the Atlantic Ocean north of the equator— and cryptozoologists are certain to keep their eyes open for one—it looks like we will have to broaden our search for giant cephalopods to include the giant squid’s eight-armed relatives.

The Colossal Octopus

Just how big do octopuses grow? That is a good question, and an important one to answer. The reason is because octopuses are bottom-dwellers. They do not constantly swim around and chase down food in the open water the way squid do. For the most part, octopuses slink around and ambush prey that they encounter on or near the ocean floor. If a gigantic octopus were to attack a boat, the water would have to be shallow enough for the octopus to latch some of its arms onto the boat while anchoring itself to the bottom with its other arms. If it gained purchase on the boat, it could then either try to pull the boat under or release its hold on the bottom and mount a full-fledged attack on the boat and its crew at the surface. What this means is that any boat floating in water significantly deeper than the arm span of a big octopus would be safe from attack. It also means that any octopus able to reach a boat in deep water far offshore would have to be of colossal size—which is just what one would expect of a Kraken. Unfortunately, no one knows exactly how big octopuses might grow. There are two current legitimate record holders. One is a 156-pound (71-kg) North Pacific giant octopus (Enteroproctus dofleini), a species that inhabits the cold coastal waters of the northwestern United States and Canada. The other is the 134.2-pound (61-kg) partial remains of a seven-armed octopus (Haliphron atlanticus), a more widespread species found in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Scientists estimate that this specimen weighed 165 pounds

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A scuba diver approaches a North Pacific giant octopus in the waters off the coast of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. This carnivorous mollusk has a well-developed brain and highly efficient eyes.

(75 kg) when it was alive and intact. (This octopus gets its “seven-armed” nickname from the fact that one of the arms of the male is modified into a tiny structure that is used to transfer spermatophores to the female during breeding. This tiny arm, called a hectocotylus, is hidden in a little sac beneath the right eye, so the male octopus appears to have only seven arms.) Obviously, neither of these octopods is large enough to be a threat to anything other than the tiniest dinghy. There are reports, however, of unbelievably big octopuses—big enough to play the role of the legendary Kraken. To explore these

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sightings, we have the enviable task of braving the winds and the waves—or more precisely, the surf and the sun—of the tropical paradises of the Hawaiian Islands, the Bahamas, and Bermuda.

Kraken in Paradise?

In 1950, a really bizarre sight befell the eyes of Madison Rigon, a resident of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. Two hundred yards (183 m) offshore from his beachfront house near Honolulu, Rigon saw a grayish-brown, car-sized object just beneath the surface of the incoming waves. Circling this strange object were several large tiger sharks. Suddenly, the boldest of the sharks darted toward the object, which responded by thrusting a long, thick arm in front of the shark: The object was a huge octopus. The octopus raised one of its massive arms 30 feet (9.1 m) out of the water, exposing rows of dinner platesized suckers. According to Rigon, the octopus eventually tired of the pesky sharks, squirted a house-sized cloud of ink into the water, and sank down out of sight. Once they realized the octopus was gone, the sharks swam away. That same year, another humongous octopus was observed, this one by a spear fisherman hunting in the 30-foot-deep (9 m) reef along the west coast of the island of Hawaii. As he searched for sea turtles, Val Ako suddenly realized he was staring at a huge octopus with a body as big as his boat, arms 75 feet (22.9 m) long, and suckers as big as car tires. Needless to say, the stupefied Ako immediately swam back to his boat and climbed out of the water. Fortunately, the octopus paid him no attention whatsoever. In analyzing these two stories, both of which were recounted in 1997 in a Honolulu newspaper, cryptozoologist Nick Sucik made the interesting observation that both of these sightings occurred in relatively shallow water near sea

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turtle nesting grounds. This suggests the possibility that these octopuses were waiting to snag sea turtles as they swam to the beach to lay eggs. Now, of course, no one knows whether these eyewitness accounts are true. All we have to go on are the words of the witnesses—no photos, no movies, no dinner plate- or tire-sized suckers as evidence. The consistency between the two reports, however, lends at least a touch of credibility to the stories. Eyewitness accounts originating from the Bahamas, a group of islands in the Caribbean Sea, also tell of encounters with colossal-sized octopuses. In fact, much as the giant squid has been immortalized in the European legend of the Kraken, a giant multi-armed sea monster has been immortalized by Bahamians in the legend of the Lusca.

Legend of the Lusca

The Lusca is described as a huge sea monster that sounds suspiciously like a gigantic octopus. It hides in underwater caves that branch off from large circular openings in the bottom of the sea floor. These openings are the infamous blue holes, located near several islands in the Bahamas. Whirlpools sometimes form over blue holes, and they have been known to suck down small boats and swimmers. According to legend, the Lusca creates these whirlpools when it breathes. (Sounds a lot like Odysseus’s foe Charybdis, doesn’t it?) Geologists have explored blue holes and their cave systems and determined that the deadly whirlpools are produced by incoming tides that flow into the holes. That, however, doesn’t preclude the possibility that Luscas—perhaps huge cryptid octopuses—live in them. In fact, caves in blue holes not only provide the perfect hideout for octopuses (or “scuttles,” as Bahamians call them); they are also populated by a whole smorgasbord of delicacies tailored to the taste of even the most finicky octopod.

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Giant scuttles have been reported several times in the Bahamas. In one account, a fisherman struggled mightily to haul in his fishing line, only to discover a huge octopus hanging on to it. The beast let go of the line and latched on to the fishing boat’s hull, alarming all on board. To everyone’s relief, the big scuttle eventually released its grip and sank out of sight.

A Curious Incident in Bermuda

A bit to the northeast of the Bahamas—900 miles (1,440 km), to be precise—we encounter reports of giant octopuses

Let’s Get Technical: Blue Holes

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he Bahamas are a group of islands in the West Indies, just north of Cuba. The islands are composed almost entirely of limestone, a porous rock riddled with microscopic cracks, crevices, and holes. Because it is so porous, water easily seeps through it. Salty ocean water seeps up from below, and rainwater seeps down from above. In the region where the salt and fresh water meet and mix, the limestone slowly dissolves and is flushed away with the tides. Over millions of years, this process has produced large holes—the Bahamas’ famous deep blue holes, up to one-half mile (0.8 km) in diameter—that lead to underground mazes of interconnected tunnels, caves, and caverns that in some cases extend for hundreds of feet. The upper rim of a blue hole typically boasts a ring of sea grass or a coral reef teeming with fish, shrimp, and other critters, while the dark recesses beneath the blue hole provide a haven for countless other animals. Sea anemones, crabs, shrimp, snail-like cowries, and fish, including the occasional shark, may be encountered within the cave system beneath a blue hole. A blue hole is also the perfect lair for an octopus—even a Kraken-sized colossal one.

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Legend has it that blue holes, like this one in the Caribbean Sea near Belize, are inhabited by a gigantic octopuslike beast called the Lusca.

inhabiting the waters surrounding Bermuda. One of the most detailed accounts ever written about an encounter with what would seem to be a colossal octopus was submitted to the International Society of Cryptozoology in 1985. This report relates the trials and tribulations endured by Bermudan deepsea fisherman John Ingham, who, in 1984, lost two big—and expensive—crab traps to what appeared to be a huge eightarmed thief. These two traps, the larger one measuring 8-by8-by-4.5 feet (2.4-by-2.4-by-1.4 m), were made of thick steel wire and were attached to a sturdy rope that was reeled in and out of the water by means of a motorized winch. In both cases, Ingham and his winch played tug-o-war with some powerful creature deep beneath the surface before the beast tugged so hard that the ropes broke and Ingham’s cages disappeared into the abyss.

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In another instance, the creature grabbed a smaller trap and slowly towed the fishing boat this way and that for several minutes before releasing the trap. While this was happening, the ship’s sonar display showed a 50-foot-high (15.2-m), pyramid-shaped object in the water below. Unfortunately, the only bits of evidence Ingham wound up with after all his tangles with the crab-pilfering creature were the unidentifiable image on his sonar screen and one slightly banged-up crab trap. It was tantalizing evidence, but hardly proof of the existence of a colossal octopus. Bermuda has coughed up other evidence that, at least in the eyes of many eager monster hunters, is proof that some species of colossal octopus lives near the Bermuda coast. This proof took the form of an amazing carcass that washed up on the beach.

The Bermuda Blob

A few years after John Ingham’s run-in with a suspected giant octopus, beachcomber Teddy Tucker came across a strange sight along the edge of Bermuda’s Mangrove Bay. There on the beach was what looked like the carcass of some huge marine creature. The white, tough, fibrous carcass was 8 feet (2.4 m) long and nearly 3 feet (0.9 m) high, and resembled a partially deflated balloon. Fortunately, Tucker photographed the specimen and cut off and preserved some tissue samples for scientific analysis, because the carcass soon washed back out into the ocean and was never seen again. Because of its indistinct shape, the carcass was dubbed the Bermuda Blob, and it was added to cryptozoologists’ slowly growing list of such discoveries, variously known as “blobs,” “blobsters,” and “globsters.” Bermuda is not the only place where these strange blobs have surfaced. They have been discovered on beaches all over the world. Among the more notable of these finds are the

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St. Augustine giant octopus, discovered along the Florida coast in 1896; the Tasmanian Globster, discovered on the western shore of Tasmania, an island just south of Australia (1960); the Nantucket Blob (1996), from an island near the Massachusetts coast; and the Chilean Blob, along the west coast of South America (2003). People have been puzzled about the identity of blobs for more than a century. Because of their baglike appearance, many people thought that these objects were the decomposed remains of an unknown species of gigantic octopus, or perhaps a super-giant squid. Famed teuthologist Addison Verrill weighed in on the matter in 1897 and ventured his opinion on the identity of the St. Augustine blob, even though he never traveled from New England to Florida to examine it. Based on photographs and a description of the carcass provided in a letter sent by a Florida physician named DeWitt Webb, Verrill declared that the carcass must be the remains of a monstrous squid. This is not surprising, since Verrill was by now well acquainted with Architeuthis and had heard about the humongous Thimble Tickle squid. Verrill soon changed his mind and decided it was probably a huge octopus, not a squid. He officially recognized it as such by naming it Octopus giganteus. Yet, when Verrill later analyzed tissue samples of the blob provided by Webb, he changed his mind again and concluded that the blob was probably nothing more than the remains of the bulbous head of a sperm whale. As it turns out, Verrill was right the third time. In 2003, more than a century after Verrill made his final diagnosis, a group of scientists published the results of their study of the tissues of several blobs, including all the ones mentioned above. Sidney Pierce of the University of South Florida and his research team performed three separate tests on the tissues and determined once and for all that the source of these blobs was whales, not giant cephalopods.

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Blobs of Blubber

The first test was a microscopic study of the blobs. By using an electron microscope to study extremely thin slices of the tissues, the researchers discovered that the tissues were packed full of microscopic fibers that looked like a specific kind of protein called collagen. Furthermore, the arrangement of these fibers in each blob sample was exactly like the arrangement of collagen fibers found in whale blubber, but totally different from the collagen fiber arrangement found in cephalopods. Next, the scientists performed a chemical analysis to determine the relative amounts of certain amino acids (the small building-block molecules that make up proteins) that serve as molecular “fingerprints” for collagen. They found that the relative amounts of these amino acids in the blob samples closely matched the collagen amino acid fingerprint. This evidence, combined with the electron microscope evidence, strongly suggested that the source of the blobs was whale blubber. Finally, the researchers performed an analysis of two blobs’ DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid, the genetic material of cells). Like protein, DNA is a complex molecule composed of smaller building block molecules. Yet, whereas proteins are composed of amino acids, DNA is composed of a long string of molecules called nucleotides, of which there are four types. The sequence of these four nucleotides in a DNA molecule provides a “fingerprint” that scientists can use to identify the species of organism from which the DNA was obtained. The results of this DNA test left no doubt as to the origin of the blob tissue samples. When Pierce’s group compared the DNA sequences of the Chilean and Nantucket blob samples against an online computer database that lists DNA sequences for tens of thousands of species of plants and animals, they found a nearly perfect match for

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each one. The Chilean Blob’s DNA sequence was closest— 99% identical—to that of Physeter catadon, the sperm whale. The Nantucket Blob’s DNA matched precisely with another big whale, the finback (Balaenoptera physalus), which can reach a length of 79 feet (24 m). Echoing the sentiments of cryptozoologists the world over, Pierce concluded his group’s report with the following statement: “Once again, to our disappointment, we have not found any evidence that any of the blobs are the remains of gigantic octopods, or sea monsters of unknown species.” Nevertheless, we do know for certain that huge squid exist, and the possibility that huge octopuses haunt the ocean floor hasn’t been ruled out. In fact, it’s not inconceivable that an as-yet unknown, cold-water version of the giant scuttle inhabits the bottom of the North Sea and has been responsible for some sightings by Kraken witnesses. Armed to the gills with information about these giant cephalopods, we are now ready to consider the ultimate question on the minds of all Kraken enthusiasts: Is the Kraken really capable of attacking big ships and pulling them down to a watery grave? A couple of famous stories would indicate that the answer to this question is a resounding “Yes!” This investigation needs to take a close look at these accounts to see whether they really hold water and validate the legend of the mighty Kraken—or whether they leak like a sieve.

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6 Beast vs. Boat A

s we have seen, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that people and large cephalopods have tangled with each other in one fashion or another throughout history. Although most of these encounters took place hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years ago, stories of close encounters of the 8- and 10- armed kind continue to surface. For example, in a bizarre incident in the 1930s, the Brunswick, a huge tanker ship in the Norwegian navy, was repeatedly attacked by a big Architeuthis. The squid could not get a secure grip on the slippery hull and slid along the side of the vessel until it got caught in the tanker’s massive propellers, which promptly sliced and diced the unfortunate animal. Interesting encounters between squid and boats have also been reported in the twenty-first century. In January 2003, a giant squid reportedly attacked the yacht Geronimo, which was competing for France’s Jules Verne Trophy in an 80

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around-the-world boat race. Several hours after departing from the Atlantic coast of France, the yacht was attacked by a large Architeuthis. The squid, which had arms as thick as a man’s leg, grabbed and shook the boat’s hull as its tentacles snagged the yacht’s rudder. Fortunately, the squid eventually let go, and the boat and crew, left no worse for wear, continued the race. Four years later, in January 2007, the progress of yachtsman Shigeo Kitano’s sailboat, the Akitsushima, was hampered when an unknown underwater hitchhiker temporarily latched onto the bottom of his boat as he sailed toward the Marquesas, a group of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Kitano never saw the animal, but later examination of the boat revealed hundreds of circular marks etched into the painted surface of the hull and rudder; the circles were a perfect match with the serrated suckers of Architeuthis. No one knows why the Geronimo and Akitsushima were targeted by giant squid. Perhaps the animals attacked the boats because they were hungry, and when they discovered that their “prey” was inedible, they departed. Perhaps they mistook the boats for mates and then left after discovering that the boats were not squid of the opposite sex. Maybe they were acting aggressively, trying to convince their “rivals” to leave the neighborhood. As far as the attack on the Brunswick is concerned, it’s hard to understand why a giant squid would attack such a huge “victim” as a navy tanker. Such an incident, however, supports the possibility that some fights between sperm whales and giant squid might actually be started by the squid, not the whale. As interesting as these stories are, they pale in drama when compared with two incidents that were reported in the 1800s. Both are cases that need to be looked at in greater detail.

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Case #1: The Angola Attack

The first of these two remarkable incidents was published in 1802 by the French naturalist Pierre Denys de Montfort. According to a report discovered by de Montfort, a big threemasted trading ship was attacked and nearly sunk by a monstrous poulpe, or giant octopus. As the ship was preparing to pull anchor and set sail off the Atlantic coast of the African nation of Angola, the huge creature rose from the ocean, grabbed the ship, snaked its arms up the masts, and hoisted its massive body out of the water. As the uninvited guest started to climb aboard, the boat listed (tipped over) and was close to taking on water and sinking. The ship’s crew hacked away at the beast’s arms with knives, swords, and axes in a desperate fight against the monster. As a last resort, the crew prayed to St. Thomas for assistance, promising to make a pilgrimage in honor of the saint if they should survive their ordeal. Lo and behold, the tide of battle turned and the crew managed to cut off the creature’s arms one by one, whereupon the armless, suckerless octopus fell back into the ocean. Thankful for St. Thomas’s help, the sailors made good on their promise and made a pilgrimage to the local church as soon as they returned to their home port of Saint-Malo, on the northern coast of France. A painting of the incident reputedly hung in the church for many years. Thanks to de Montfort’s report, this terrifying story became famous. Many artists painted their own versions of the octopus attack, all showing a monstrous poulpe emerging from the water, arms flailing, as stalwart sailors aboard the besieged ship whack away at the beast with their meager weapons. It has been suggested that Jules Verne got his idea for the squid attack on the Nautilus, Captain Nemo’s submarine in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, from de Montfort’s story.

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In 1802, French naturalist Pierre Denys de Montfort published a report about a gigantic octopus, or poulpe, which supposedly attacked and almost capsized a three-masted trading ship along the Atlantic coast of the African nation of Angola.

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Fact or Fiction?

What are we to make from this episode? Is it a fair accounting of an actual incident, or is it nothing more than a tall tale? Most scientists don’t take de Montfort’s account very seriously because he had a reputation for being a bit of a jokester and an exaggerator. There are, however, a couple curious details about this incident that suggest that de Montfort’s story shouldn’t be disregarded. First of all, the poulpe attack must have occurred in fairly shallow water because the ship had not yet pulled anchor and set sail. Therefore, it would have been within easy reach of a bottom-dwelling octopus as big as the one described by de Montfort. Second, much of the Atlantic coast of Angola is frequented by sea turtles, which feed and nest on the sandy beaches. The similarity between these conditions and those

Let’s Get Technical: Octopus Camouflage

T

he octopus exhibits an uncanny ability to quickly change its appearance to blend in with its surroundings. Although the chameleon lizard is the most famous master of disguise, it can change only its skin color, and it takes at least a few minutes to do so. The octopus, on the other hand, can change both the color and the texture of its skin, and in a matter of seconds, not minutes. The octopus’s skin contains microscopic structures called chromatophores, which are elastic sacs filled with pigments. Each sac is surrounded by muscles that can quickly expand or contract the structure. When the sacs expand, the skin color darkens, and when they contract, the skin color lightens. The sac muscles are under the direct control of the nervous system. When the octopus’s eyes detects a change in the color of the surrounding background, the brain immediately sends out nerve impulses that trigger the muscles

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where two monster octopuses were sighted more than a century and a half later in Hawaii suggests that there may be something to this story after all. Still, neither this story nor the ones from Hawaii have any solid evidence behind them. They’re just first- or second-hand accounts of what people claimed to have witnessed—hardly proof in the eyes of a skeptical cryptozoologist. Any reasonably skeptical cryptozoologist would surely wonder why, if these monsters really exist, scuba divers and snorkelers don’t encounter car-sized octopuses all the time. There are two possible explanations for this. First, there may not be very many of these giants out there. Octopuses are solitary animals. A car-sized octopus would probably defend a very large territory, possibly covering miles of shoreline. Second, octopuses are masters of camouflage. They can change their

to contract or expand the chromatophores by the precise amount needed to produce the right skin color. Because this response is under direct nervous system control, it happens in just a fraction of a second. Also within the octopus’s skin are little fluid-holding structures called papillae. In a process that is poorly understood, papillae can quickly grow into bubble- or drop-shaped blobs that stick up out of the skin. As these papillae enlarge, the skin texture rapidly changes from smooth to warty or bumpy. Muscles within the octopus’s mantle can also change the shape of the animal’s flexible, saclike body from round to nearly flat. By changing its body shape and its skin color and texture, even a big octopus can quickly make itself virtually invisible against a backdrop of ocean floor or coral reef.

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shape and the color and texture of their skin to blend into any background they might encounter as they slink around the ocean bottom. A skin diver could conceivably swim right over one of these beasts without even seeing it.

Case #2: The Sinking of the Pearl

The second notorious case we need to investigate would appear to have a bit more substance to it. It presents two different eyewitness accounts of the same incident—one in which a monstrous squid reportedly attacked and sank a ship. The story was reported in 1874 in the Times, a respectable British newspaper. In May of that year, the steamship Strathowen was slowly making its way across the Indian Ocean, heading toward the port city of Madras on the east coast of India. One afternoon, the Strathowen passed within a couple miles of the Pearl, a small schooner. According to an observer with binoculars aboard the Strathowen, there was a strange, indistinct object floating at the surface a short distance away from the schooner. Suddenly, the object seemed to come to life and headed directly toward the Pearl. Before the stunned eyes of everyone aboard the Strathowen, the object attacked the schooner, grabbed it, slowly tipped it over, and yanked it underwater. In the space of just a few moments, the Pearl was gone. The crew of the Strathowen changed course and headed toward the schooner as it sank and managed to rescue the ship’s captain and four of the six crew members. (Two of the crew had vanished beneath the surface.) According to a report filed by James Floyd, the Pearl’s captain, the creature that attacked his boat was a gigantic squid. It had been floating peacefully at the surface when Floyd decided to take a pot shot at it with his rifle. The bullet scored a direct hit and resulted in immediate—and deadly—retaliation by the wounded squid. The beast made a beeline toward the

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schooner, latched onto it, grabbed its masts, pulled it over, and then yanked it underwater, killing two of the crew in the process.

One More Time: Fact or Fiction?

So, was this the real deal, or was it a hoax? Bernard Heuvelmans was inclined to believe it: “Was that a hoax? Perhaps it was, but if so, it was certainly the work of a master, and a most well informed one at that. Everything in the story has the ring of truth, down to the smallest details.” However, Heuvelmans noticed two problems with the story. First of all, there is no official record confirming that the Strathowen shipped any cargo across any ocean, anywhere in the world, in 1874. So if it wasn’t shipping any cargo, what was it doing steaming around the Indian Ocean? Secondly, Captain Floyd stated that one of the victims from the Pearl was a sailor from Newfoundland, Canada, where all of those dead and dying Kraken were washing ashore. This little detail, plus Richard Ellis’s observation that Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was published a short time before the Pearl incident was reported, makes one wonder if the Newfoundland strandings and Verne’s novel provided fertile fodder for an impressive hoax. Without any hard evidence, neither the octopus attack off the coast of Angola nor the squid attack of the Pearl can be considered as proof that monstrous ship-sinking cephalopods truly exist. As far as we know for certain, no ship has ever met its end in the clutches of a Kraken. As the old saying goes, however, and as many Kraken fans point out, “absence of proof is not proof of absence.”

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7 Final Report on the Kraken T

he legend of the Kraken is an old and rich one. People have been aware of the existence of giant cephalopods for at least 2,500 years. In ancient times, Homer had Scylla; Aristotle had Teuthos; and Pliny had the fish-stealer of Carteia. By the 1500s, everyone knew the ocean was filled with the Sea Orm and other terrifying sea monsters, and Olaus Magnus vividly illustrated them in his colorful map, the Carta Marina. Two centuries later, the public was introduced to Bishop Pontopiddan’s fanciful Island Beast, which was destined to be honored in verse by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1830. By the mid-1800s, science finally took the Kraken seriously enough to grant it an official name. Japetus Steenstrup was granted the naming rites and dubbed the giant squid 88

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Architeuthis, “extreme squid.” When dozens of Architeuthis carcasses washed ashore on the beaches of Newfoundland in the 1870s, American teuthologist Addison Verrill had a field day studying all the specimens sent his way by the

How big does the Kraken grow? Large enough to destroy big ships? That’s definitely the case in the legend of the Kraken. The truth is harder to define.

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90  KRAKEN: FACT OR FICTION?

Reverend Moses Harvey. By the 1900s, scientists had a solid understanding of the anatomy of this huge squid, but they were still in the dark about its natural history: How did it hunt, what did it eat, how and where did it breed, how long did it live, how deep did it dive—the list of questions was as long as a Kraken’s tentacle. Persistent scientists, however, kept searching for answers, and their work is finally starting to pay off—most notably with the snapshots and video of live Kraken obtained by Tsunemi Kubodera and his colleagues in waters off Japan. The biggest question of all centers on the creature’s size: How big does the Kraken get? Even the experts can only shrug their shoulders when asked this question. The largest Architeuthis collected so far weighed several hundred pounds, which is certainly impressive, but that’s not nearly big enough to capsize a ship, which is the Kraken’s biggest claim to fame. Even the Kraken’s half-ton cousin, the colossal squid, wouldn’t be able to capsize a ship the size of the Pearl. This makes one wonder: If stories of boat-sinking Kraken are true, either Architeuthis can grow a heck of a lot bigger than we think, or a much larger, still-unknown species of cephalopod still lurks out there, waiting to be discovered—an exciting prospect for ever-hopeful cryptozoologists. That’s a very real possibility. Some really big unidentified squid beaks have turned up in sperm whale stomachs, which means that Architeuthis and Mesonychoteuthis may not be the only species of huge squid out there. It’s definitely possible that these two known species grow even bigger than scientists estimate. In his book The Search for the Giant Squid, Richard Ellis reprints a letter he received from a level-headed marine who claimed to have laid eyes on a 100-foot squid in shallow, crystal clear water by a small island near Puerto Rico. The marine was certain that the squid he saw was fully capable of capsizing a good-sized sport-fishing boat. Again,

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Final Report on the Kraken  91

this is only a story, unaccompanied by photos, videos, or souvenir suckers. Still, it adds to the Kraken’s mystery. Even more alarming than the prospect of an unfriendly encounter with such a monstrous squid is the possibility that an unknown 100-foot species of squid (or a car-sized octopus, for that matter) might become extinct before we discover it. Some of the world’s most productive fishing grounds have been partially or totally destroyed by overharvesting of popular food fishes. For example, the cod fisheries of the Grand Banks (just offshore of Newfoundland) and the North Sea, prime hangouts for giant squid, have been decimated in recent decades. Also, deep-sea trawlers have scooped up countless tons of fish and squid off the coast of New Zealand, another Kraken hot spot. No one knows for sure whether Architeuthis has become an endangered species, because no one has any idea how many giant squid are out there right now, let alone how many there were prior to the collapse of cod and other fisheries. One thing is certain, however: If the squid’s food supply disappears, so will the squid. How ironic it would be if humankind were to destroy the very source of its Legend of the Kraken. What do you think?

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Glossary Ambergris  A waxy substanse secreted in the intestine of a sperm whale

Ambrien  A soft, waxy substance secreted in a sperm

whale’s intestine in response to the accumulation of squid beaks and other indigestible items

Amino acids  Building-block molecules of protein Anatomy  The structure of an organism Barnacle  A filter-feeding crustacean relative of crabs

and lobsters that attaches to underwater surfaces such as rocks, boat hulls, sea turtle shells, and even sperm whale teeth

Basalt  A type of rock formed from cooled and hardened magma

Behemoth  A huge and powerful animal Bilateral symmetry  The condition in which one side of an object is a mirror image of the other side

Binomial nomenclature  A two-name classification system

for organisms, consisting of the genus and species; for example, humans are classified as Homo sapiens.

Botanist  A scientist who studies plants Branchial heart  A heart that pumps blood through a squid’s gill

Buccal cavity  The mouth of a cephalopod Buccal ganglion  The ganglion that innervates a cephalopod’s mouth

Buoyancy  The tendency to float Cartilaginous  Made of or containing the bonelike substance called cartilage

Cartography  Map-making Cephalopod  The group of mollusks that includes the squid, cuttlefish, octopus, and chambered nautilus 92

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Glossary   93

Chitin  A tough, horny substance found in the beak and suckers of squid

Chromatophore  A pigment cell capable of contracting or expanding, resulting in a change in color

Club  The flat, widened tip of a squid’s tentacle Collagen  A type of fibrous tissue made of protein Collar  The front end of the mantle Corroborate  To confirm or make certain Crust  The rocky outermost layer of the Earth Cryptid  A “hidden” animal that some people believe

exists, even though there is insufficient evidence to prove its existence

Cryptozoology  The study of unknown or “hidden” animals Decapod  A 10-armed cephalopod, such as the squid Density  The mass of an object divided by its volume Echolocate  To navigate using sonar Enigmatic  Perplexing or baffling Etymology  The origin or source of a word Forensics  The use of science and technology to investigate and establish facts in a court of law

Funnel  A muscular, hoselike structure that extends from

a squid’s mantle collar; the squid propels itself by squirting water through the funnel.

Ganglia (singular: ganglion)  Tightly packed clusters of nerve cells

Geologist  A scientist who studies rocks, minerals, and earth processes, such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions

Gladius  The internal shell of a squid Global warming  Warming of the Earth’s climate as a result of a buildup of greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide) that trap heat radiated from the planet’s surface

Hair cell  A cell inside a statocyst, possessing a hairlike projection that triggers a nerve impulse to the brain when it is bumped by a statolith

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94  Glossary

Hectocotylus  A modified arm in male cephalopods, used to transfer spermatophores to the female during breeding

Ink sac  An organ in the mantle cavity that stores protective ink that is released when a squid is startled or threatened

Invertebrate  An animal without a backbone (for example, worms, insects, snails, and squid)

Magma  Molten rock from Earth’s mantle Mantle  In biology, the body of a cephalopod; in geology, the layer of molten rock underneath Earth’s crust

Mantle cavity  The interior of a cephalopod’s mantle, where

the digestive, reproductive, circulatory, and respiratory organs are located

Median heart  The heart that pumps blood to every part of a squid’s body except the gills

Mid-Atlantic Ridge  A submerged mountain range that

runs from north to south along the middle of the floor of the Atlantic Ocean

Mollusk  An animal belonging to phylum Mollusca, characterized by a head, muscular foot, and mantle

Negative buoyancy  The tendency of an object to float downward in less dense fluid

Neutral buoyancy  The tendency of an object to remain where it is in a fluid of the same density

Nucleotides  Building-block molecules of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), the genetic material of cells

Octopod  An eight-armed cephalopod; an octopus Optical ganglia  The ganglia that innervate a cephalopod’s eyes

Ovary  The egg-producing organ of a female animal Papillae (singular: papilla)  Fluid-holding structures in the skin, which can enlarge into bumps that stick up from the skin’s surface

Paralarva  A baby squid Pedicle  The stalklike structure that attaches suckers to an arm or tentacle

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Glossary   95

Pen  Another name for the gladius Penis  A male reproductive organ used to transfer sperm to the female

Positive buoyancy  The tendency of an object to float upward in a denser fluid

Radula  The rough, rasping tongue of squids and other mollusks

Rift  A crack in the Earth’s crust where the crust is spreading apart

Skeptical  Of a doubtful or questioning attitude; a skeptic

relies on facts and reason, rather than wishful thinking or gut feelings, to draw a conclusion.

Sonar (acronym for sound navigation and ranging)  A device that uses sound waves to detect underwater objects and surfaces

Spermatophore  A packet of sperm cells Statocyst  A tiny balance-detecting organ located in a squid’s head

Statolith  A minute particle that floats around inside a stato-

cyst; it triggers nerve impulses to the brain when it bumps into hair cells within the statocyst

Submarine  Submerged, underwater Taxonomist  A scientist who classifies organisms Testis  The sperm-producing organ of a male animal Teuthologist  A scientist who studies squids Topography  The surface features (mountains, valleys, etc.) of a place or region

Visceral ganglion  The ganglion that innervates many of the internal organs (viscera) of a cephalopod’s body

Winch  An apparatus that raises or lowers objects attached to

a rope or wire line by winding or unwinding the line around a cylinder

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bibliography Books and Articles

Associated Press. “Half-ton, 39-foot Colossal Squid Caught by Crew in Antarctic Waters.” (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, February 23, 2007. Burton, Robert. The Life and Death of Whales. New York: Universe Books, 1980. Ellis, Richard. Monsters of the Sea. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2006. ———. The Search for the Giant Squid. New York: Lyons Press, 1998. ———. Singing Whales and Flying Squid. Guilford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2005. Heuvelmans, Bernard. The Kraken and the Colossal Octopus: In the Wake of Sea Monsters. London: Kegan Paul, 2003. ———. “What is Cryptozoology?” Cryptozoology 1 (1982): 1–12. Homer. The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Alan Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam Dell, 1990. Matthews, L. Harrison. The Natural History of the Whale. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978. Morrison, Philip. “Giant against Giant in the Dark.” Scientific American 275 (1996): 124–126. Palmer, Robert. “In the Lair of the Lusca.” Natural History 96 (1987): 42–46. Roper, Clyde F.E., and K.J. Boss. “The Giant Squid.” Scientific American 246 (1983): 96–105. Tarbuck, Edward J., and F.K. Lutgens. Earth: An Introduction to Physical Geology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. Vaughan, Terry A. Mammalogy. (2nd ed.) Philadelphia: Saunders College Publishing, 1978. Verne, Jules. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. New York: HarperCollins, 2000. 96

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Bibliography   97

Web Sites

BBC News. “Giant octopus puzzles scientists.” 28 March 2002. Available online. URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/ nature/1898313.stm Accessed 29 April 2009 Carlowicz, Mike. “A River Runs Through It: Chronicling the Currents of the North Atlantic.” Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. 7 July 2008. Available online. URL: http://www. whoi.edu/page.do?pid=14940&tid=282&cid=2557 Accessed 29 April 2009. CNN.Com. “Giant squid slows Geronimo.” 15 January 2003. Available online. URL: http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/ sailing/01/15/kersauson.ppl/index.html Accessed 29 April 2009. Griggs, Kim. “Super squid surfaces in Antarctic.” BBC News. 2 April 2003 Available online. URL: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ hi/science/nature/2910849.stm Accessed 29 April 2009. Hanlon, Roger. “Cephalopod Dynamic Camouflage.” Current Biology. Vol.17, No. 11. Available online. URL: http://www.mbl. edu/mrc/hanlon/pdfs/hanlon_currentbiol_2007.pdf Accessed 29 April 2009. Kubodera, Tsunemi, and K. Mori. “First-ever observations of a live giant squid in the wild.” Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 22 December 2005. Vol 272, No. 1581. Available online. URL: http://www.pubmedcentral. nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1559985 Accessed 29 April 2009. Ley, W. “Scylla Was a Squid.” Pick From the Past. Natural History Magazine. June, 1941. Available online. URL: http://www. naturalhistorymag.com/master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/editors_pick/1925_01-02_pick.html Accessed 29 April 2009. MacKenzie, Debora. “Seismic surveys blamed for giant squid deaths.” New Scientist. 2 October 2004. Issue 2467. Available online. URL: http://www.newscientist.com/article/ mg18424671.700-seismic-surveys-blamed-for-giant-squiddeaths.html Accessed 29 April 2009.

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98   Bibliography Moore, John. “The St. Augustine Giant Octopus.” Strangemag. com. Available online. URL: http://www.strangemag.com/ globsters1.html Accessed 29 April 2009. O’Shea, Steve. “Architeuthis (Giant Squid) reproduction, with notes on basic anatomy and behavior.” Tonmo.com. 28 March 2003. Available online. URL: http://www.tonmo.com/science/ public/architeuthisreproduction.php Accessed 29 April 2009. Pierce, Sidney K., et al. “Microscopic, Biochemical, and Molecular Characteristics of the Chilean Blob and a Comparison With the Remains of Other Sea Monsters: Nothing but Whales.” Biological Bulletin. June 2004, Vol. 206. Available online. URL: http://www.biolbull.org/cgi/content/abstract/206/3/125 Accessed 29 April 2009. StrangeArk.com. “Giant Squid Attacks Boat?” 13 January 2007. Available online. URL: http://www.strangeark.com/ blog/2007/01/giant-squid-attacks-boat.html Accessed 29 April 2009. Sucik, Nick. “Just When It Seemed Safe to Go Snorkeling: Hawaii’s Giant Octopuses.” North American BioFortean Review. December 2000. Vol. 2, No.3, Issue 5. Available online. URL: http://www.strangeark.com/nabr/NABR5.pdf Accessed 29 April 2009. Talmadge, Eric. “Japan Researchers Film Live Giant Squid.” Associated Press. 22 December 2006. Available online. URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ article/2006/12/22/AR2006122200160.html Accessed 29 April 2009. TONMO.com. “Dr. Steve O’Shea Interview.” 10 May 2002. Available online. URL: http://www.tonmo.com/osheainterview. php Accessed 29 April 2009. Wood, F.G. “An Octopus Trilogy, Part III: In which Bahamian Fishermen Recount their Adventures with the Beast.” Pick From the Past. Natural History Magazine. March, 1971. Available online. URL: http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/ master.html?http://www.naturalhistorymag.com/editors_ pick/1925_01-02_pick.html. Accessed 29 April 2009.

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Bibliography   99 Young, Emma. “The Gruesome Eating Habits of the Giant Squid.” New Scientist. 30 July 2005. Vol. 187. Issue 2510. ———. “Monsters of the Deep.” New Scientist. 2 August 2003. Vol. 179. Issue 2406.

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Further Resources Books

Angel, Heather. Monsters of the Deep: Sharks, Giant Squid, Whales and Dolphins. London: Octopus, 1976. Boyle, Peter, and Paul Rodhouse. Cephalopods: Ecology and Fisheries. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005. Bunting, Eve. The Giant Squid. New York: Messner, 1981. Cerullo, Mary M. The Truth About Dangerous Sea Creatures. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2003. Cousteau, Jacques, and Susan Schiefelbein. The Human, the Orchid and the Octopus. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2007. Gilpin, Daniel. Snails, Shellfish and Other Mollusks. Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2006. León, Vicki. A Tangle of Octopuses: Plus Cuttlefish, Nautiluses, and a Giant Squid or Two. Parsippany, NJ: Silver Burdett Press, 1999. Markle, Sandra. Outside and Inside Giant Squid. New York: Walker Books, 2005.

Web Sites Architeuthis dux: Giant Squid http://marinebio.org/species.asp?id=156 This site provides a detailed description of the anatomy and natural history of the giant squid. It also includes a still photo from the video of the giant squid captured by Tsunemi Kubodera in 2006. Dubious Globsters http://www.geocities.com/capedrevenger/dubiousglobsters. html The site presents capsule summaries of several blobs, blobsters, and globsters that have washed ashore all over the world. There are also many photos of these objects. 100

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Further Resources   101 The Kraken http://unmuseum.mus.pa.us/kraken.htm This Web page about the kraken is from Unmuseum.org, a virtual museum about cryptids, UFOs, and other unexplained phenomena. Natural History Museum: Giant squid goes on display http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2006/feb/news_5255. html This London museum’s site offers an interesting look at Archie, the preserved giant squid specimen put on display there in 2006. Skylla http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Skylla.html A detailed description of the Greek god Scylla (also spelled Skylla), along with an ancient painting of the creature, is featured.

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Picture Credits Page: 11: © Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy 13(a): © Rodho/Shutterstock 13(b): © Bill Kennedy/ Shutterstock 13(c): © lavigne herve/ Shutterstock 13(d): © Vling/Shutterstock 15: © Getty Images 16: © Brian J. Skerry/National Geographic/Getty Images 18: © Sinclair Stammers/Photo Researchers, Inc. 27: © Jens Kuhfs photography/ Getty Images 30: © Michael Freeman/CORBIS 32: © Christian Darkin/Photo Researchers, Inc.

39: © Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy 42: © Dhoxax/Shutterstock 46: © The London Art Archive/ Alamy 50: © Popperfoto/Getty Images 56: © Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy 62: © AP Images 64: © AP Images 68: © Getty Images 71: © Jeff Rotman/Stone/Getty Images 75: © Thomas Schmitt/Getty Images 83: © Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy 89: © velveau/iStock

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InDex A

Akitsushima, 81 Ako, Val, 72 Alecton, 56–57 ambergris, 28–29, 50–51 ambrien, 29 amino acids, 78 ammonium chloride, 21, 22 anaconda snakes, 8 anatomy of Kraken head of, 17–19 mantle of, 19–22 overview of, 14–17 Angola, 82–86 Architeuthis, 12, 55–56 Aristotle, 41–42 arms, 13, 16–17

B

Baffin Island Current, 58 Bahamas, 73–74 barnacles, 31 basalt, 49 battles, documented, 33–36 beaks description of, 17 digestion of, 28–29 as evidence, 55 size and, 90 Beale, Thomas, 31 Beast (Benchley), 10 Benchley, Peter, 10 Bermuda, 74–76 Bigfoot, 7, 10 bilateral symmetry, 12 binomial nomenclature, 47–48, 55 blobs, 76–79 blue holes, 74

boats, encounters with, 57–60, 80–87 body (mantle) anatomy of, 19–22 calculating length of, 63 camouflage and, 83 of cephalopods, 13–14 mollusks and, 12 Bolstad, Kathrin, 69 brain, description of, 19 branchial hearts, 20 Brazil, 35 Brunswick, 80 buccal cavity, 18 buccal ganglion, 19 buoyancy, 21, 22

C

cachalot, 26. See also Sperm whales cameras, 61–64, 90 camouflage, 82–83 Canary Islands, 56–57 cannibalism, 23–24 captivity, raising in, 61 Carta Marina, 45–47, 88 Carteia, fish-thief of, 43–44, 52, 88 cartography, 45–47 caves, underwater, 73, 74 cephalopods, 12–13 chambered nautilus, 13–14 chameleons, 82 The Charge of the Light Brigade (Tennyson), 51–52 Charybdis, 38, 40 Cheever, Henry, 34–35, 43 Chichijima, 62 Chilean Blob, 77, 78–79 103

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104   Index chitin, 17, 41 chromatophores, 82 Chupacabras, 7, 8 Circe, 40 claws, 41 clubs, 16–17, 41 cod fisheries, 91 collagen, 78 collar, description of, 19 colossal squid, 67–70 Commodore Preble, 34 corroboration, 33 crab traps, 75–76 crust of Earth, 49 cryptids, defined, 6 cryptozoology, 6–7, 53 cuttlefish, 13, 14

D

Danish Natural History Society, 54 de Montfort, Pierre Denys, 82–86 decapods, 14 Denmark, 54 density, buoyancy and, 21 digestion, sperm whales and, 28 diving skills of sperm whales, 26–27 DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid), 78

E

echolocation, 31–32 eggs, 21–22 Ellis, Richard, 33, 57, 87, 90 Enteroproctus dofleini, 70–71 esophagus, 17 etymology, 15–16 extinctions, 8 eyes, description of, 18–19

F

feeding, process of, 17–18, 48 feet, mollusks and, 12

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fertilization, 21–22 finback whales, 79 fins, 22 Floyd, James, 86, 87 food. See Feeding forensics, cryptozoology and, 7 French Academy of Science, 57 funnel, 20, 21

G

Gaius Plinius Secundus, 43–44, 88 ganglia, 19 geography, 49–50 Geronimo, 80–81 giant squid, Kraken as, 10, 12 Gibraltar, Strait of, 43 gills, 20 gladius (pen), 14 global warming, 59 Globster, 77 Grand Banks, 91 Greeks, 37–42 Gulf Stream, 58

H

Hafgeuse, 47–49 hair cells, 19 Haliphron atlanticus, 70–71 Harvey, Moses, 59–60, 90 Hawaiian Islands, 72 head, 12, 17–19 hearts, description of, 20 hectocotylus, 71 Heuvelmans, Bernard, 6, 44–45, 50–51 History gentibus septentrionalibus (Magnus), 44–45 History of Animals (Aristotle), 41–42 History of the People of Northern Regions (Magnus), 44–45 hoaxes, 87 Homer, 37–41, 88 hunting technique, 29–33

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Index   105

I

Iliad (Homer), 37 Ingham, John, 75 ink sac, 20, 23 Island Beast, 47–49, 88

Microcosmus marinus, 47–48 Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 49 Mokele-mbembe, 7, 8 mollusks, 12–14 Mori, Kyoichi, 61–63

J

N

Labrador Current, 57, 58–59 larvae, 61 Linnaeus, Carolus, 47–48 Loch Ness Monster, 7, 10 lure, jaw as, 31 Lusca, 73–74

Nantucket Blob, 77, 78–79 National Science Museum (Tokyo), 61–64 nautilus. See Chambered nautilus Nautilus, 82 negative buoyancy, 21 neutral buoyancy, 21 New Zealand, 60–61, 91 Newfoundland, Canada, 57, 59, 91 nomenclature, binomial, 47–48, 55 North Pacific giant octopus, 70–71 North Sea, 49 Norway, 44–45 nucleotides, 78

M

O

Japan, 61–64 Jules Verne Trophy, 80–81

K

Kitano, Shigeo, 81 Koefoed, Einar, 33–34 Kongamato, 7 “The Kraken” (Tennyson), 52 Kubodera, Tsunemi, 61–64, 90

L

magma, 49 Magnus, Olaus, 44–47, 88 Mangrove Bay, Bermuda, 76 mantle (body) anatomy of, 19–22 calculating length of, 63 camouflage and, 83 of cephalopods, 13–14 mollusks and, 12 mantle cavity, 20 maps, 45–47 median heart, 20 Mediterranean Sea, 41–42 Megalania, 7 Megalodon, 7 Megalodon, 26 Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, 67–70 Messina, Strait of, 38

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Oahu, Hawaii, 72 octopods, 14 Octopus giganteus, 77 octopuses, 13, 14, 44, 70–77, 82–83 Odysseus, 37–41 Odyssey (Homer), 38–41 Ogasawara Whale Watching Association, 61–63 optical ganglia, 19 O’Shea, Steve, 61, 69 ovaries, 20

P

Pacific Ocean, 61–62 papillae, 83 paralarvae, 61 Pauline, 35 Pearl, 86–87, 90

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106   Index pedicles, description of, 17 pen. See Gladius penis, 20–21 perfumes, 28 Physeter, 26. See also Sperm whales Piccot, Theophilus and Tom, 57–59 Pierce, Sidney, 77–79 pigments, 82 Pirates of the Caribbean, 10 Pliny the Elder, 43–44, 88 poetry, 51–52 Pontopiddan, Erik Ludvigsen, 48, 51, 88 positive buoyancy, 21 poulpe attack, 82–86 propulsion, mechanism of, 20 Puerto Rico, 90

R

radula (tongue), 17–18 Ri, 8 rifts, 49 Ringon, Madison, 72 Romans, 43 Ropen, 7 Roper, Clyde, 29, 60–61

S

Scandinavia, 44–47 scuba divers, 85 scuttles, 73–74 Scylla, 38–41 Sea Monk, 54 Sea Orm, 47 sea turtles, 73 Search for the Giant Squid, The (Ellis), 33, 90 seawater, buoyancy and, 21 Seekrabbe, 47–49 seven-armed octopus, 70–71 ships, encounters with, 57–60, 80–87 shooting of Kraken, 86–87

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skull, 19 sodium chloride, 21 sonar, 31–33, 76 “sonic stun gun” hypothesis, 31–33 South Shetland Islands, 67 specimens, availability of, 10–11 speed, cruising, 30 sperm whales battling of with giant squid, 33–36 catching Kraken and, 61–64 hunting technique of, 29–33 Kraken as food for, 23–24 orangutans, 26–28 specimens from stomachs of, 10–11 stomach contents of, 27 spermatophores, 20 squid, 27, 67–70. See also Giant squid Squire, Daniel, 57–59 St. Augustine giant octopus, 77 statocysts, 19, 33 statoliths, 19 Steenstrup, Japetus Smith, 53–55, 57, 88–89 Strathowen, 86, 87 “stun gun” hypothesis, 31–33 submarine volcanoes, 49–50, 51 Sucik, Nick, 72–73 suckers, 17, 44 Sucuriju, 7 Surtla, 49 Surtsey, 49 symmetry, bilateral, 12 Systema Naturae (Linnaeus), 48

T

tail fins, 22 Tasmanian Globster, 77 Tasmanian wolf, 7

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Index   107 taxonomy, 55 teeth, 17–18 Tennyson, Alfred, 51–52, 88 tentacles, 13, 16–17, 44 testis, 20 Teuthis, 42 teuthologists, defined, 22 Teuthos, 42 Thimble Tickle, 60 thunderbird, 8 thylacine, 7 tongue (radula), 17–18 topography, sonar and, 32 Trojan War, 37 Tucker, Teddy, 76 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Verne), 9, 10, 82, 87

U

Uppsala, Archbishop of. See Magnus, Olaus

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V

Verne, Jules, 9, 10, 82, 87 Verrill, Addison, 59–60, 77, 89–90 Vesuvius, Mount, 43 visceral ganglion, 19 volcanoes, submarine, 49–50, 51 vomit, 29

W

water, 21 wax, 29 Webb, DeWitt, 77 Whale Watching Association (Ogasawara), 61–62 whales, 77. See also Sperm whales whirlpools, 73 winches, 75

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About the Author Rick Emmer is a substitute science and math teacher for the Avon Lake City School District in northeast Ohio. He was previously an aquarist at the Cleveland Aquarium and a zookeeper at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. He has a bachelor’s degree in biology from Mount Union College and a master’s degree in biology from John Carroll University. He was a member of the International Society of Cryptozoology for several years. Emmer lives with his family in Bay Village, Ohio, smack dab in the middle of Cryptid Country, with the lair of the Lake Erie Monster to the north and the hideout of the Grassman, Ohio’s Bigfoot, to the south.

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