Three brothers - Daniel, Jack and Matthew Aplin were driving along the trail near the Red Rocks on the south coast of Wellington, looking for a dive site, when they suddenly noticed a monster squid washed up on the beach by the tide.
“My brother said,“What’s there?” - and pointed at this monster with his finger, "- says Daniel Aplin. "It was right next to the track, so we stopped and immediately thought: It must be such a giant squid."
And then the guys began to be photographed next to the monster, which clearly overshadowed them by its size, although all three Aplin brothers are really “big dudes”.
“After diving there for a bit, we returned to the squid with a tape measure. It turned out to be 4.2 meters long,”the brothers tell the New Zealand Herald.
A nature conservation representative who visited the site said that it was most likely a giant squid (species Architeuthis), and not a colossal squid (representative of the species Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni). And although giant squids grow to a much larger size, experts across the country were shocked by the find.
"It's not even a squid, but a whole bunch of squid," writes one marine biologist in a discussion. "People are worried about sharks, and here there is such horror in the water."
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The Aplin brothers say the same, that is, while diving in the area, they regularly see sharks, but this is the first time they have met such a huge squid.
In addition, the brothers do not understand how the squid ended up on the shore, what ultimately killed it:
“The squid was completely intact, no sign of being attacked by another animal. There was a scratch on his head, but very tiny, it is unrealistic that such a thing would kill him. While we were diving the squid was generally alive - it moved and shrank."
Editorial comment
We are not great experts in either marine flora or marine fauna, but as the reference books write, there is nothing surprising in the size of the squid, this species sometimes grows up to 13 meters. However, as the same reference books write, biologists describe such large animals as the phenomenon of “deep-sea gigantism”. That is, all these giants live very deeply and NEVER visit the surface. Therefore, the question "What threw the squid?" really interesting. Isn't his appearance the harbingers of a strong earthquake in the area or even an explosion of an underwater volcano?