There’s No Such Thing as a Giant Squid

A few months ago I went to the Natural History Museum in New York where I saw a giant squid wrestle a sperm whale. Well, I actually saw a diorama of a giant squid and a sperm whale made of plaster. It was incredible to me to think of so large an animal with such creepy tentacles. I lingered at the model longer than at any other diorama, imagining how easily this animal would take down a fishing vessel, just like in storybooks. And because I sometimes lean towards the morbid, I soaked in the idea of how terrifying it would be to face such a formidable foe in the wild.

As I stared in awe, I began to wonder why this wasn’t the giant model hanging from the ceiling at the center of the room instead of a big blue whale. I also thought about how annoying the presentation was, since it was in the darkest possible corner of a giant rotunda containing numerous other better-lit displays of ocean life.

Now I wonder if perhaps this poor lighting was designed to prevent me from reading the little plaque by the display where the museum admits that no one has ever actually captured one of these creatures. Parts have washed up on shores or been dragged up on fisherman hooks, but so have mermaid tails. It was like reading the small print under an ad for acne medicine that quietly describes the risk of death associated with the product.

I’m pretty quick to believe scientific things when told them; I believe that we landed on the moon, I believe that man came from monkeys and that the earth goes around the sun, but for some reason I have a hard time with the concept of a giant squid, big enough to wrestle a whale but impossible to catch. By complete accident we catch Prehistoric fish thought to have been extinct for thousands of years and yet no one seems to get ahold of a whole giant squid. And I know what you’re thinking, they’re giant and hard to catch, but so are whales and we eat them. Imagine the calamari possibilities that lie in those gigantic tentacles.

And as if the 8 python sized tentacles aren’t impressive enough assets, according to Wikipedia, giant squids also might have the largest eyes of any animal at around 12 inches in diameter, which is good since they live in almost complete darkness deep down in the ocean. Earthworms don’t see a lot of sun either, which is why they don’t have eyes. Aren’t eyes just points of weakness in an animal that doesn’t really need them? I suppose this isn’t evidence of their lack of existence, but it seems like a design flaw.

There are literally thousands of pictures of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, and I’m not saying that either of these animals exists, but why did it take until 2004 to get a snapshot of a giant squid? It’s right there in the name, they’re huge. And in the pictures of these squids you never see them next to a boat or a diver or even another fish. I want a little perspective. You hear about them trying to take down boats but do none of these boaters think to snap a picture? Come to think of it, maybe the museum display was so dark because the curators didn’t have a clue what the squid actually looks like.

I’m not saying that giant squids don’t exist (unless you look at the title of this entry, in which case, that is exactly what I’m saying), but I suppose what I’m really wondering is when we will get to put one in a tank and study it? I know, a very un-PETA-Manifest Destiny-Ugly American way of putting it, but come on, I want to look one in the eye and feel good about it being trapped behind Plexiglas, unable to sink me.