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Critter Identification / Archived topic

Pelagic octopus and giant squid bit identification (Ogasawara, Japan)

Started by echeng ·

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Pelagic octopus and giant squid bit identification (Ogasawara, Japan)

2 posts
  1. While we were in Ogasawara, we photographed the carcasses of three large cephalopods spit up by sperm whales. The first was some sort of pelagic octopus, the second, a very large squid (arm segment floating in the water, body in the mouth of a sperm whale), and the third, a 351-cm giant squid arm, which was photographed and then recovered for research (they got this after I left -- have yet to see photos).

     

    This is probably a stretch, but does anyone have any idea what these critters are? As a reminder, Ogasawara is where the footage of a live Architeuthis was taken back in 2006.

     

    Pelagic octopus (Tony Wu surmises that it might be a (Haliphron atlanticus) seven-arm octopus):

     

    echeng091013_0237842.jpg

     

    For scale, here's Tony floating above it:

     

    echeng091013_0237830.jpg

     

    Squid arm segment. Coloration looks similar to the coloration of the arms of the Architeuthis in the Ogasawara video from 2006.

     

    echeng091014_0238993.jpg

     

    Squid chunk in sperm whale mouth. We think it's the same squid, because they were in the same area:

     

    echeng091014_0238866.jpg

    Edited by echeng
  2. I forwarded this post to Steve O'Shea, the renowned teuthologist. I imagine he'll be able to help.

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