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Friday, February 23, 2007

Deep sea discovery: The monsters from the deep

They're huge. They're ferocious. They were - until now - reassuringly rare. But the capture of a spectacular colossal squid could be a symptom of something bigger.
Kathy Marks reports


Published: 23 February 2007

It is one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep ocean, and one of the most elusive. Only half a dozen colossal squid have been caught. The specimen hauled out of the inky waters of Antarctica is believed to be the biggest, weighing half a ton, with eyes as big as dinner plates.

The gigantic sea creature, about 39ft long, with a large beak and razor-sharp hooks on the end of its tentacles, was feasting on a Patagonian toothfish - itself one of the more sizeable members of the marine population - when it was caught by New Zealand fishermen this month.

Experts described it yesterday as a "phenomenal" find. One said that if calamari rings were made from it, they would be the size of tractor tyres.

Colossal squid, or Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, are not related to giant squid, which grow to a maximum of "only" 39ft and are somewhat lighter. The biggest colossal squid are believed to reach 46ft in length. They are active and aggressive killers that have been known to attack sperm whales, and they live at depths of up to 6,500ft.

The New Zealand Fisheries Minister, Jim Anderton, who announced the discovery of the new specimen, said it took fishermen two hours to land it. They had been fishing with long lines for Patagonian toothfish, also known as Chilean sea bass, in the Southern Ocean. Mr Anderton said "the squid was eating a hooked toothfish when it was hauled from the deep".

The crew stopped long lining and manoeuvred the squid into a cargo net to haul it on board their ship, San Aspiring. It was then frozen in the ship's hull and brought back to New Zealand for scientific analysis. Experts have yet to examine it, but they believe it to be the first intact adult male ever landed.

The species was first recorded in 1925, when two arms were found in the stomach of a sperm whale. In 1981, a Russian trawler caught a 13ft immature female in its net in Antarctic waters. Another complete specimen was captured near the surface in 2003. But so few adults have been seen that scientists know next to nothing about the colossal squid's life history, diet, behaviour and reproductive patterns.

If initial estimates are correct, the 990lb creature that is on its way to New Zealand's national museum in Wellington, Te Papa, is 330lb bigger than an immature female caught on the surface of the Ross Sea, off the Antarctic.

Steve O'Shea, a squid expert at Auckland University of Technology, said that the new specimen eclipsed that find. "I can assure you that this is going to draw phenomenal interest," he said. "It is truly amazing."

Mr Anderton predicted that marine scientists "will be very interested in this amazing creature, as it adds immeasurably to our understanding of the marine environment".

He said: "The squid was almost dead when it reached the surface, and the careful work of the crew was paramount in getting this specimen aboard in good condition." The creature would be photographed, measured, tissue sampled, registered, and preserved intact for scientific study, he added. "Ongoing examination of this giant will help to unlock some of the mysteries of the deep ocean. Even basic questions such as how large does this species grow to, and how long does it live for are not yet known."

While colossal squid live in freezing Antarctic waters, giant squid, or Architeuthis dux, are found around the coast of New Zealand. Dr O'Shea has described colossal squid as "not just larger, but an order of magnitude meaner". He told the BBC: "It really has to be one of the most frightening predators out there. It's without parallel in the oceans."

While the giant squid has suckers lined with small teeth on the end of its tentacles, the colossal squid has two rows of rotating sharp hooks, as well as a large beak - a lethal combination. It is believed to eat marine worms, Patagonian toothfish, which themselves reach up to 8ft long, and smaller squid. It finds its prey by lighting up the dark waters.

Large numbers of sperm whales have been found with scars on their backs, thought to have been caused by the hooks of colossal squid. But the sperm whale is one creature that is larger and more fearsome.

The majority of partial colossal squid specimens, along with a sizeable number of beaks, have been found inside sperm whales' stomachs. Encounters between these two gigantic creatures are believed to result in battles of epic proportions. Colossal squid have eight "arms" and two tentacles, and are the largest known invertebrate. Their protruding eyes are believed to be the biggest in the animal kingdom. The discovery of the first intact adult male may shed light on how these mammoths of the deep reproduce. The males are believed to have something resembling a penis.

Some speculate that colossal and giant squid fuelled the sea monster legends that date back to the 12th century, when Norwegian seafarers returned with stories of a formidable creature called a Kraken. According to National Geographic magazine, the Bishop of Bergen in the 18th century compared the Kraken with a "floating island" with massive arms. "It is said, if they were to lay hold of the largest man-of-war, they would pull it down to the bottom," he wrote.

The Jules Verne's novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea featured a "squid of colossal dimensions", supposedly based on a true encounter between a giant squid and a French naval vessel. Sailors during the Second World War described being attacked by a giant squid when their ship sunk, and even claimed that one of their number was eaten.

Yet while stories of giant man-eating squid have terrified sailors and entertained children alike through the ages, there is growing evidence to suggest that even normal squid are becoming gradually larger thanks to rising sea temperatures.

It may well be one of the few positive effects of global warming: for those who enjoy meaty calimari, recent research suggests that while rising sea temperatures can have a catastrophic effect on many species of fish, squid and octopuses become bigger in warmer waters.

Scientists in Australia discovered five years ago that the breeding cycle and growth rate of squid is directly related to the temperature of the sea. A 1 per cent increase in the temperature of the water where they reproduce and feed can cause juvenile squid to double their size. The reason for such colossal growth, scientists believe, is because the animals' digestive enzymes work faster in warmer waters.

Similarly large squid have been found by American researchers in Alaska and Siberia where sea temperatures have risen by as much as 4C.

"The good news is they taste great," says John Forsythe, an expert on Cephalopods, the biological family to which squid belong. "They're pure protein and they have no bones."

Mysterious inhabitants of the oceans' murky depths

Little is known about the lives of the large species of squid - giant and colossal - that live in the deep ocean except that they must inhabit an exceptionally dark environment.

Sightings of dead squid floating on the sea surface or washed up on beaches have been occasionally reported over the years but none have been captured alive.

They are thought to be fast swimmers and either hunt or scavange smaller fish and crustaceans. They are also probably the source of the many ancient myths about ship-swallowing monsters of the deep. As coastal waters have been depleted of fish stocks, fishing vessels have been going further out to the deeper ocean to catch more exotic species for the table, such as the Patagonian tooth fish, more commonly known as the Chilean sea bass.

Deep-sea fishing has probably led to an increase in the number of giant and colossal squid being caught as accidental by-catch in nets, said Alex Rogers, a marine biologist at the London Zoo. "They are very fast moving and the live in the deep ocean so it's very difficult to study them. They can probably see quite well even in dim light because things are lit up by bio-fluorescence at this depth, so it's surprising that this one was caught in a net," Dr Rogers said.

Many of the species in the deep ocean are slow-growing and take many years to reach sexual maturity. Some fish can live for more than 150 years, but nobody knows how long a colossal or giant squid can live.

Jon Ablett of the Natural History Museum in London said that DNA samples will be quickly taken from the colossal specimen. The animal will then be preserved in a formalin solution. "It's very exciting because this is the first time we have been able to study a complete, mature adult," Mr Ablett said.

The deep sea is considered the last great wilderness on the planet. Many unique lifeforms have evolved to cope with the high pressures, constant cold and total darkness of the depths.

Steve Connor

Monday, February 19, 2007

Dolphin 'dying of broken heart' after keeper is stabbed to death


By Peter Popham in Rome
Published: 20 February 2007

A rare grampus dolphin, rescued 18 months ago after it swam into an Italian port, seems to be dying of a broken heart after the woman who reared it like her own child was murdered.

Tamara Monti, 37, the creature's keeper, was stabbed to death two weeks ago by the man who lived in the flat above her. Police found an unemployed man, Alessandro Doto, 35, standing in the street outside the block where they lived, frozen like a dummy with a blood-spattered knife in his hand. He told them Ms Monti's two dogs barked all day and it drove him mad.

The issue had been simmering between them for months. Ms Monti and her partner had found a new place to live with their cat and dogs and were due to move the next day.

Ms Monti was from the Lake Como region, hundreds of miles north-west of Riccione, a resort on the Adriatic coast just south of Rimini, but Riccione had taken her to its heart. The town was in mourning on hearing of her death. But no one missed her like Mary G.

The grampus dolphin was a calf in June 2005 when she and her mother blundered into the port of Ancona, south of Riccione, and ran aground. They were rescued and brought to hospital, but Mary G's mother died three days later. After two months the dolphin had recovered sufficiently to be brought to Oltremare Park in Riccione, a seaside theme park, where she was given a pool of sea water and the constant attendance of experts. They bottle-fed her a mixture of herring, vitamins and mineral salts, rocked her like a baby and gave her swimming lessons. But only one of the keepers talked to her as if she were her own child, and that was Ms Monti.

As Mary G grew, she became the park's big attraction. Her fame spread through Italy, via websites, television programmes and blogs. Visitors flocked to Riccione to see her.

"We wanted to return her to the open sea," said Sauro Pari, head of the organisation that runs the park, "but international experts advised against it. They told us she would not survive."

Instead the grampus dolphin with the comical rounded forehead and cartoon-like grin, and her surrogate mother, remained together - for life, or so it appeared.

But now Mary G is dying. The word began to spread within days of Ms Monti's murder, through the blogs and websites devoted to her. One message read: "Since Tamara's death, Mary is unwell. Let's help her." She would either refuse her diet of milk and squid, or eat it then spew it out.

Mary G's weight plummeted from 210kg to 160kg in a couple of weeks. As happened 18 months ago, she is being attended by specialist vets, but has so far failed to respond to treatment.

At the theme park, dolphin experts are going out of their way to deny any firm connection between the keeper's murder and the dolphin's sickness. They say there is a simple explanation for her rejection of food: an intestinal parasite which she could have acquired at any time.

"From a strictly scientific point of view we absolutely cannot assert that the two facts are connected," Mr Pari said. "But there is no doubt that her grief for the death of Tamara is great. We are very worried about what will become of her."

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Exploring the Virgall of Lolye
Virgall or Virkall in Kannada connotes a hero stone (vir=hero, kall=stone). They commemorated the warriors, the battles and the kings. Countless Virgalls are found in Goa, many of them dating to the Kadamba period. Lolye in Canacona is full of unexplored artifacts for historians and researchers. The Virgall near the house of Isidore Fernandes, the ex-MLA of Painguinim, is a beautiful relic. It has 5 exquisitely carved panels, a magnificent Gaj-Lakshimi panel crowns the Virgall thus making it rare. The hero in a dancing pose, cheered by female dancers constitutes the second panel. prof George Moraes also describes Virgalls of the Kadamba dynasty in which the hero is depicted in a dancing pose. [Rohit Phalgaonkar, NT]