The longest mollusk - the giant gun squid

The longest mollusk in the world is the giant gun squid

Gun squid, also called squid, lives in the sea area not far from the shore, the head and body are very narrow and long, the torso is not pointed, shaped like the tip of the javelin, so it is named gun squid. The largest known gun squid is 17 meters long and the tentacles are 13 meters long, making it the longest mollusk.

The Giant Gun Squid (Giant Squid) is the world's largest invertebrate, the legendary sea monster, with the largest eye in the animal kingdom.

The way the tail is crossed is quite strange Males do not have a real penis by 1 to 2 wrists concurrently function as a sexual organ

Gun squid is very good at swimming, and swims very fast, swimming speeds of up to 50 meters per hour, and can reach 150 kilometers per hour when encountering predators. Their streamlined bodies reduce the resistance of water, and the torso is wrapped around a sac-like mantle membrane, and inside is a cavity and a coat cavity, which is filled with water and the entrance is fastened. Squeeze the coat cavity, the water inside will spew out from the funnel under the neck, and the gun squid will rely on the reaction force of the spray to push the body forward. When the gun squid is full, it paddles slowly with its diamond-shaped fins when there is no danger, and its body advances in a wavy shape; when it preys or encounters danger, it faces its tail forward, and its head and tentacles turn to the tail and tighten together, and advance in a water spraying manner. Gun squid can also change the color of the body when the environment changes. When in danger, they release a jet of ink that confuses the enemy's sight and quickly escapes.

The legend of the giant gun squid

This terrifying troll has appeared in countless novels and movies. In 1861, ships of the French Navy claimed to have encountered giant squid. Inspired by this, Verne, in his famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, put the Nautilus into a vicious battle with the giant squid. Melville's novel Invincible, directed by Houston, became a classic of adventure films. The ancient Greeks regarded the flesh of the jujube octopus, a relative of the giant squid, as an anagodic. But how exactly do real giant squid live? So far, only dead or dying giant squid have been seen, and no one has ever observed their traces in the natural habitat of giant squid. The British squid scholar Clarke spent his life trying, but also without success. Clark searched for the giant squid for decades. While working as a prosecutor in a whaling ship and whaling station, he searched the stomachs of the killed whales for traces of giant squid. He carefully studied the beaks of thousands of giant squids, shaped like the beaks of parrots. Much of what people know about the giant squid comes from analyzing these finds. Giant squid can be divided into two main categories: in addition to the actual octopus with eight tentacles, that is, the octopus whose trunk has become spherical and most of them live on the seabed, there are also squid with ten tentacles, which is academically ten wrist squid. The latter prefer the free waters of the open ocean. Although octopuses can grow up to one to two meters in length, strictly speaking, the sea monsters that appear in myths and legends actually refer to giant squid. There is no doubt that giant squid belong to the giants of the animal kingdom, with only a few species of cetaceans, and they are larger. This can be seen from the eyes of a giant squid plate alone. Its eye diameter, up to 25 centimeters, is the largest in the animal kingdom. The total length of the body of the giant squid can reach 18 meters, of which the length of its two tentacles, which are mainly responsible for catching, and the length of eight ordinary wrists, accounts for 10 to 12 meters. In addition to the tentacles stretching in all directions, the body of the giant squid is also very large. It has an infinite number of suction cups. On top of each, a fine circle of serrations is wrapped around it, capable of cutting deep into the body of the prey and clinging to them tightly. In order to tear the food, they also have a powerful jaw that can reach a length of up to 15 cm and resembles the beak of a parrot. Because people have only studied the dead giant squid so far, people know a lot about its body structure, but they know almost nothing about its living habits. If one draws a map of what has been found and observations to date, giant squid appear to prefer to live in the cooler waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, 300 to 1,000 meters below sea depths. What they all catch for food is still not very clear, because their stomachs, if not empty, are usually only a paste made of powerful jaws. Are these violent monsters quietly hiding aside, in the depths of the dark seabed, waiting for the victims to be delivered to the door, or are they accustomed to attacking quickly? Are they, like most other species of squid, not long-lived and died after three years, or are these creatures, seen as monsters, actually long-lived people in the deep sea? Are they really that rare, or are they at the bottom of the sea, actually wandering with millions of giant squid? American squid scholar Luo Po, in 1997, hoped to finally find answers to these questions. He organized the most expensive expedition ever conducted. Roper's team sailed to Kaikoura Island, off the coast of New Zealand. Before that, giant squid had been caught in that area several times. It's also a favorite spot for sperm whales. However, the opposite happened, neither the deep sea nor the camera mounted on the whale's back was able to capture the giant squid swimming or even fighting the whale. Millions of dollars in exchange, just a void. Not long ago, however, giant squid were spotted with rather strange cross-tail behavior. Like many other species of squid, male giant squid do not have a real penis. One or two of the ten wrists of these animals serve as the organs of sexual intercourse, the so-called stem-shaped wrists, or also known as the articulated wrists.