The Great Colossi
by Frank
Sperm Whales are the largest of toothed whales and of any animal with teeth. The whale was named after a milky white substance found in its head mistaken for sperm. It dives over 2,000 meters (approximately 7,000 feet) to feed on its prey of fish and squid. It is the deepest diving mammal in the world. Sperm whales live for more than 70 years! Sperm Whales are enormous, while as not as large as the blue whale, sperm whales inspired the book Moby Dick. If you have ever seen a sperm whale there are circle shaped spots on its skin. These are from the sucker cups of a giant squid. These sucker cups have teeth in them cutting the skin where they are hooked onto leaving a scar. Of course these sucker cups are not they only weapon a squid has.
Giant Squid belong to the deep ocean dwelling family Architeuthidae. These squid can grow to 43 ft. for females and 33 ft. for males. The Giant Squid is smaller than the Colossal Squid which is estimated to be over 14 meters long. There have been some claims about squids reaching 20 meters long but these have not been documented. These squid have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom, the eye can be up to 27cm across! The lens alone is as big as an orange! Being caught in New Zealand, it remains preserved in New Zealand’s national Museum, Te Papa Tongarewa. The squid have two long tentacles that make up most of the length of their bodies. Also they have a very powerful beak to smash the bodies of prey.
The fight between a giant squid and a sperm whale would start out as a whale going out to look for food, and detect the squid with its sonar location. The whale moves in to attack the squid and as it is about to bite it the squid attaches itself to the sperm whale’s head (this is why we see those suction cup marks on the head of the whales). The whale would try to throw the squid off while the squid would be trying to bash through the whales skull and skin with its powerful beak. This video shows what could happen. Of course only older whales can hunt these squid.
What advantages to giant squid have over sperm whales? What advantages to sperm whales have over giant squid? Why can only older sperm whales hunt these giant squid?
November 17th, 2008 at 5:57 pm
Frank this is interesting. You have informed me greatly on sperm whales and foe’s the squid. I didn’t know that whales or squid could actually fight each other ” I thought that both of these cretures were peacful.” I read at this website http://www.whale-images.com/sperm_whale_facts.jsp that sperm whales head takes up to 1/3 of the whales body. I also read at http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/sperm-whale.html
that sperm whales eat about 1 ton of food a day.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Great post. I didn’t know that whales and giant squid fight either. I found on this website: (http://www.tonmo.com/science/public/giantsquidfacts.php) that the giant squid is also called “Architeuthis dux”. This website also has some good pictures of the giant squid, some of which show the tentacles up close. It also has some more information about the giant squid.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
Wow Frank, I’ve heard of the two species fighting but didn’t think it was common. I looked into the New Zealand squid project ( http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/04/29/asia/AS-GEN-New-Zealand-Colossal-Squid.php ). Apparently the beast was caught by a fishing vessel in the Ross Sea. It was frozen soon after capture and the scientists are now thawing it to examine it better, and finally provide some accurate insight to the life of these creatures.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
On this website, I found out that no one has really seen sperm whales feeding in the wild. (http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-Do-Sperm-Whales-Hunt-the-Giant-Squids-49194.shtml) “During the day, squids spent about 75 % of their time at depths of 600 - 1,300 ft (200 - 430 m), but at nighttime, more than 50 % of their time was spent above 600 feet (200 m)… But the whales spent 75 % of their time at 600 - 1,300 ft (200-430 m) day and night.”
November 19th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
Cool post frank. I found out that certain octopi have the advantage of using poison. They could use that along with the constriction of their tentacles to kill the whale. Although the poison may not be enough to kill the whale, it is still enough to do some damage.
http://raincoaster.com/2006/10/10/when-tiny-pretty-octopus-attack/
November 20th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Great post frank. I went to http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/whales/species/Spermwhale.shtml and it said that the brain is about 20 pounds! It also said that they can have 4-12 inches of blubber. It is a cool website you should check it out.
November 22nd, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Great Colossi response:
One advantage that the sperm whales have over the giant squid is that it can use echolocation. Sperm whales use echolocation to locate their prey, here are some sound clips and information on echolocation: http://www.oceanfootage.com/video_clips/JB01_025 and http://www.interspecies.com/pages/sperm%20whale.html. These are some short video clips of sperm whales: http://www.oceanfootage.com/stockfootage/Sperm_Whale. Sperm whales can grow to be 18 meters and are able to dive 9800ft to catch their prey! Giant squid are said to grow as long as 10 meters for males and 13 meters for females. This website contains video and information on the giant squid: http://evomech7.blogspot.com/2006/12/japan-researchers-film-live-giant.html.