Oceanic Nightmare

Watching Secrets of the Deep a new, part live and part CG, documentary on the Discovery Channel, I was startled by the news of a new, bigger type of squid that lives in Antarctic waters. The program is about the life of Sperm Whales, and it makes a number of doubtful claims about melting ice caps. Near the end, it features an encounter with a "Colossal Squid," mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, which is even larger that the Giant Squid. It has swiveling hooks its tentacles up to 2 inches long. Larger than the male, the female grows to almost 50 feet long.

These things have fascinated me since I first saw Disney's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea with it's bogus rubber squid. The real things are a lot scarier.