Since ancient times, there have been so many incredible legends and stories around these animals that it was impossible to believe in their existence. However, unlike many fabulous creatures, giant squids, or stored, exist in reality
Kraken was first described by Aristotle. He called them "big teutis" and claimed that squid up to 25 meters long are found in the Mediterranean Sea.
The first literary description of giant squids was made by Homer: his Scylla is nothing more than a kraken. Hesiod, describing the gorgon Medusa, borrowed tentacles from the squid and placed them on the monster's head, and then, for added effect, turned these tentacles into snakes. And, of course, the Lernaean Hydra, which Hercules defeated, also owes its origin to the kraken. In some antique images, in particular on a marble slab kept in the Vatican, you can see Hercules striking a small squid with a club, which has eight snake heads at the ends of tentacles.
Much later, the myths took on a real embodiment, and people managed to get to know the fabulous monster better. In 1673, a strange creature the size of a horse and eyes, "like pewter plates" was washed ashore in the southwest of Ireland.
In the middle of the century, sailors knew the places where, at great depths, the Kraken made a lair for himself, and marked these places on the map so as not to swim inadvertently.
The monster had a beak. similar to an eagle, only much more massive. The remains of the monster were shown in Dublin for money. The founder of the modern classification of the animal world, Karl Linnaeus, attributed the kraken to the class of worms and the order of mollusks. He named it Sepia microcosmos, which translated from Latin means "cuttlefish - small world". The history of the scientific activity of the French zoologist Denis de Montfort is most closely associated with giant squids.
In 1802, he published the book "General and Private Natural History of Molluscs", in which all the stories and legends about the Kraken were meticulously collected, and the author added something of his own. The book was a tremendous success. However, it touched on one event during the Anglo-French War of 1782. Off the coast of the West Indies, the British captured six French ships, which they sent to the nearest harbor under an escort of four of their cruisers. But neither the captives nor the convoy made it to the harbor. Denis de Montfort put forward the version that all ten ships were sunk by giant squids. The British Admiralty was so indignant that it even revealed to the general public some of the secret circumstances of the sinking of the ships. The case ended in a big scandal, de Montfort had to leave his scientific career forever. Besides,this story for a long time shaken scientists' belief in the existence of giant squids.
Capturing the Kraken
In November 1861, the French steamer Dlekton met one of the giant squids at sea. The sailors decided to capture an unprecedented monster. They even managed to harpoon him. But all attempts to pull the animal onto the deck failed: after a three-hour struggle, the kraken went into the depths of the sea, leaving the sailors as a memento a small part of its body weighing about 20 kilograms. However, the ship artist managed to sketch the monster. This drawing is still kept at the French Academy of Sciences.
In 1873, an underwater giant landed in a network of fishermen from Newfoundland. People fought the monster for a long time, but in the end they pulled him to the shore. The ten-meter monster was investigated by R. Garvey. At the end of his research, he preserved the squid in a tank of salt water, which was kept for a long time in the London Museum of Natural History.
A little later, in 1880, a monster 18.5 meters long was caught in New Zealand. Between 1996 and 1998, three live female giant squid were caught at depths of more than half a kilometer. The largest of them reached a length of 15 meters and weighed about 220 kilograms! And more recently, in 2004, near the Falkland Islands, fishermen caught a magnificent specimen of a giant squid 8.62 meters long. After being examined, the kraken was placed in an acrylic tank filled with formalin. Now everyone can look at this monster by visiting the Natural History Museum in Darwin's Center London.
He's biting through the steel cables
What is the true look of the legendary kraken? It is a squid with a huge cylindrical head reaching several meters in length. The giant squid's skin color, usually dark green at rest, turns brick red when the animal is irritated. The kraken has the largest eyes in the animal kingdom - their diameter is about 25 centimeters. A powerful chitinous beak is located in the center of the crown of the “arms”. With this beak, the squid tears apart its prey - fish or smaller squid and swallows it. Moreover, with its beak, the kraken is able to bite a steel cable! In the mouth of the kraken there is a tongue-radula, equipped with transverse rows of teeth of various shapes. Swallowing and moving food inside the alimentary canal is assisted by the pharyngeal teeth - small, tilted back, lining the entire pharynx.
The giant squid catches its prey with the help of its "arms" and tentacles surrounding its beak. Eight out of ten "arms" of the kraken reach a length of three meters, and two more tentacles with which the monster captures prey are ten meters long. The ends of these tentacles are widened, and on them are four rows of suckers with small teeth. The mantle, or torso of the kraken, is tapered. At the front end of the body, behind the head, there is a muscular leg, like all mollusks. With its help, the squid moves, throwing a strong stream of water through it, allowing it to move in the opposite direction. The kraken breathes with gills.
In addition to the above, in the arsenal of giant squids there is an ink sac, through which it releases a black cloud resembling the animal itself, thereby disorienting enemies, and at the same time swimming away in the opposite direction. However, giant squids are not at all innocent victims, forced to fight for their lives every minute. In 1965, sailors on a Soviet whaling ship watched a fierce battle between a kraken and a huge, toothed whale weighing about 40 tons. The fight ended in a draw; the squid strangled the sperm whale with its tentacles, but the whale managed to swallow the head of the monster. Moreover, the squid was the initiator of the fight.
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Blinding the victim
These animals live at a depth of 200-700 meters and are the largest representatives of the animal world. It was recently established by Japanese scientists. that krakens can emit short bursts of light through the organs located on the tentacles. It is believed that these flashes help the squid blind the victim or determine the distance to the target. These lights also help squid communicate with each other or even groom females. In general, the communication of krakens with the opposite sex is a poorly understood part of their life. In all cephalopods, the male, when mating, transmits to the female several spermatophores ~ "bags" of sperm. Giant squids live in all oceans, often found in the North Sea, off the coast of Norway and Scotland, off Newfoundland, in the Caribbean, off the islands of Japan, the Philippines and Northern Australia. In our waters, kraken can only be found in the Barents Sea and the Kuril Islands.