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We're going to learn about the colossal squid in this episode, with bonus info about the giant squid...and then we're going to learn about the massive things that eat this massive squid!\n\nA giant squid, looking slightly guilty for eating another squid:\n\n\n\nA colossal squid, looking less than impressive tbh:\n\n\n\nTHAT EYEBALL:\n\n\n\nA sperm whale looking baddass:\n\n\n\nA southern sleeper shark, looking kind of boring:\n\n\n\nShow transcript:\n\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast. I\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\n\nThis week we\u2019re going to learn first about the colossal squid, and then we\u2019re going to learn about what eats the colossal squid.\n\nYou\u2019ve probably heard of the giant squid, but maybe you haven\u2019t. Let\u2019s start with it, because the giant squid and the colossal squid are both massive, amazing deep-sea animals.\n\nStories of huge squid go back to ancient times. Aristotle and Pliny wrote about it, the legend of the kraken may be at least partially inspired by it, and sailors have told stories about it for time out of mind. Naturalists of the mid-19th century knew it must exist because whalers had found enormously long tentacles and huge beaks in sperm whale stomachs. But except for the occasional badly damaged specimen washed up on shore, no one had seen a giant squid. Certainly no one had seen a living giant squid.\n\nIt wasn\u2019t until 2001 that a live giant squid was caught on film, and then it was only a larval squid. In 2002 a live adult giant squid was caught off the coast of Japan. It wasn\u2019t especially big, just 13 feet long, or 4 meters, but up until then an adult giant squid had never been captured or even photographed. Its body is now on display at the National Science Museum of Japan. It wasn\u2019t until 2004 that a research team got photographs of a live giant squid in its natural habitat, also off the coast of Japan. Since then researchers have taken more photographs and footage of giant squid, and we\u2019re starting to learn more about it.\n\nSquids in general have a body called a mantle, with small fins at the rear and eyes near the base above the arms, eight arms, and two long tentacles. The arms and tentacles are lined with suction cups that contain rings of serrated chitin, which allows the squid to hang on to its prey. Chitin is the same stuff lobster shells and fish scales are made of. It\u2019s the invertebrate version of keratin. In the middle of the arms, at the base of the mantle, is the squid\u2019s mouth, which looks for all the world like a gigantic parrot beak, also made of chitin. Instead of actual teeth, the squid has a radula, which is basically a tongue studded with chitinous teeth that it uses to shred its prey into pieces small enough to swallow.\n\nMost of the length of a giant squid comes from its tentacles. Researchers estimate that the longest giant squid\u2019s mantle is about 7 \xbd feet long, or 2.25 meters. The longest giant squid\u2019s mantle and arms together reach around 16 feet long, or 5 meters. That\u2019s still pretty huge, but it\u2019s not until you add in the tentacles that the length just gets ridiculous. The longest giant squid known\u2014and this is an estimate based on the size of the biggest beak ever found\u2014was 43 feet, or 13 meters. Females are typically much bigger than males and can weigh twice as much.\n\nThe giant squid is a deep-sea animal, probably solitary, and eats fish and smaller squid, including other giant squid. It\u2019s an active hunter and catches prey by grabbing it with its super-long tentacles, reeling it in to hold it more securely with its arms, then biting it with its beak and shredding it into pieces with its radula.\n\nThe giant squid has the largest eye of any living animal, as big as 11 inches in diameter, or 27 cm. Since it mostly lives in the deep sea, it probably needs such big eyes to see bioluminescent light given off by the animals it eats and to detect predators. Only ichthyosaurs had larger eyes. Well\u2026except for the colossal squid, which may have eyes even bigger than the giant ...