This list of giant squid specimens and sightings is a comprehensive timeline of recorded human encounters with members of the genus Architeuthis, popularly known as giant squid. It includes animals that were caught by fishermen, found washed ashore, recovered (in whole or in part) from sperm whales and other predatory species, as well as those reliably sighted at sea. The list also covers specimens incorrectly assigned to the genus Architeuthis in original descriptions or later publications.
Background
History of discovery Tales of giant squid have been common among mariners since ancient times, but the animals were long considered mythical and often associated with the kraken of Nordic legend.Rees, 1949; Salvador & Tomotani, 2014; Hogenboom, 2014 The giant squid did not gain widespread scientific acceptance until specimens became available to zoologists in the second half of the 19th century, beginning with the formal naming of Architeuthis dux by Japetus Steenstrup in 1857, from fragmentary Bahamian material collected two years earlier (#14 on this list).Steenstrup, 1857:183; validated in Harting, 1860:11 In the same work, Steenstrup also named a second species, Architeuthis monachus, based on a preserved beak, the only part saved from a carcass that washed ashore in Denmark in 1853 (#13).Steenstrup, 1857:184; validated in Harting, 1860:11 The giant squid came to public prominence in 1861 when the French corvette Alecton encountered a live animal (#18) at the surface while navigating near Tenerife. A report of the incident filed by the ship's captainBouyer, 1861 was almost certainly seen by Jules Verne and adapted by him for the description of the monstrous squid in his 1870 novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas.
The giant squid's existence was established beyond doubt only in the 1870s, with the appearance of an extraordinary number of complete specimens—both dead and alive—in Newfoundland waters (beginning with #21).Lee, 1875:111; Earle, 1977; Muntz, 1995; McConvey, 2015b These were meticulously documented in a series of papers by Yale zoologist Addison Emery Verrill.Coe, 1929:36; G.E. Verrill, 1958:69 Two of these Newfoundland specimens, both from 1873, were particularly significant as they were among the earliest to be photographed: first a single severed tentacle—hacked off a live animal as it "attacked" a fishing boat (#29)Murray, 1874b:121—and weeks later an intact animal in two parts (#30). The head and limbs of this latter specimen were famously shown draped over the sponge bath of Moses Harvey, a local clergyman, essayist, and amateur naturalist.Aldrich, 1987:109; Frank, 2014 Harvey secured and reported widely on both of these important specimens—as well as numerous others (most notably the Catalina specimen of 1877; #42)—and it was largely through his efforts that giant squid became known to North American and British zoologists.Hatton & Harvey, 1883:238–243; Aldrich, 1987:115, 1994 Recognition of Architeuthis as a real animal led to the reappraisal of earlier reports of gigantic tentacled sea creatures, with some of these subsequently being accepted as records of giant squid, the earliest stretching back to at least the 17th century.Ellis, 1994a:379, 1998a:257; Sweeney & Roper, 2001:
For a time in the late 19th century, almost every major specimen of which material was saved was described as a new species.Nesis, 2001 In all, some twenty species names were coined.Sweeney & Young, 2003 However, there is no widely agreed basis for distinguishing between the named species, and both morphological and genetic data point to the existence of a single, globally distributed species, which according to the principle of priority must be known by the earliest available name: Architeuthis dux.Aldrich, 1991:474; Förch, 1998:93; Winkelmann et al., 2013; Guerra et al., 2013
It is not known why giant squid become stranded on shore, but it may be because the distribution of deep, cold water where they live is temporarily altered. Marine biologist and Architeuthis specialist Frederick Aldrich proposed that there may be a periodicity to the strandings around Newfoundland, and based on historical data suggested an average interval between mass strandings of some 30 years. Aldrich used this value to correctly predict a relatively small stranding event between 1964 and 1966 (beginning with #169).Downer, 1965:8; Aldrich, 1967a, 1968a The appearance of specimens around New Zealand has been linked to the El Niño–Southern Oscillation, with multiple strandings in the Cook Strait in 1879–1880 (beginning with #47) and 1982–1984 coinciding with or immediately following extreme negative peaks of the Southern Oscillation Index.Stevens, 1988:158–160 Although strandings continue to occur sporadically throughout the world, few have been as frequent as those in Newfoundland in the late 19th century. A notable exception was a 15-month period between 2014 and 2015, during which an unprecedented 57 specimens were recorded from Japanese coastal waters of the Sea of Japan (beginning with #563).Kubodera et al., 2016; see also Sakamoto, 2014
Though the total number of recorded giant squid specimens now runs into the hundreds, the species remains notoriously elusive and little known. Attempts to capture a glimpse of a live giant squid—described as "the most elusive image in natural history"Ellis, 1998a:211—were mooted since at least the 1960s.Oreskes, 2003:716, 2014:29 Efforts intensified significantly towards the end of the century, with the launch of several multi-million-dollar expeditions in the late 1990s, though these were all unsuccessful. The first years of the 21st century saw a number of breakthroughs in live giant squid imagingBaird, 2002; Kubodera, 2010 that ultimately culminated in the first recordings of live animals (#548 and 549) in their natural deep-water habitat—from both a remote camera system and a crewed submersible—in July 2012.[NHK], 2013a, b; Dery, 2013 Despite these recent advances and the growing number of both specimens and recordings of live animals, the species continues to occupy a unique place in the public imagination.Hann, 2006; Guerra et al., 2011:1990; Walker, 2011 As Roper et al. (2015:83) wrote: "Few events in the natural world stimulate more excitement and curiosity among scientists and laymen alike than the discovery of a specimen of Architeuthis."
Distribution patterns
The genus Architeuthis has a cosmopolitanOkutani, 2015 or bi-subtropical distribution,Nesis, 2003; Coro et al., 2015 and carcasses are known to wash ashore on every continent except Antarctica.[NMNH], 2004 The greatest numbers of specimens have been recorded in: the North Atlantic around Newfoundland (historically), northern Spain (more recentlyGuerra et al., 2006; Fernández-Pello García, ), Norway, the northern British Isles, and the archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira; the South Atlantic off South Africa and Namibia; the northwestern Pacific off Japan (especially more recentlyKubodera et al., 2016); and the southwestern Pacific around New ZealandO'Shea, 1997, 1999 and Australia.Roper & Shea, 2013:111; Roper, 2016
The vast majority of specimens are of oceanic origin, including marginal seas broadly open to adjacent ocean, especially the Tasman Sea and Sea of Japan, but also the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea,Roper et al., 2015 among others. A handful are known from the far western Mediterranean Sea (#383, 447, 498, and 550), but these records do not necessarily indicate that the Mediterranean falls within the natural range of the giant squid, as the specimens may have been transported there by inflowing Atlantic water. Similarly, giant squid are unlikely to naturally occur in the North Sea owing to its shallow depth (but see #107 and 113, the only known English strandings). They are generally absent from equatorial and high polar latitudesRoper & Jereb, 2010:121; Roper, 2016 (but see #215 and 249 from equatorial Atlantic waters, and specimens from northern Norwaysee map in Sivertsen, 1955:11 or #102 from the edge of the Arctic Circle off western Greenland).
Total number of specimens According to Guerra et al. (2006), 592 confirmed giant squid specimens were known as of the end of 2004. Of these, 306 came from the Atlantic Ocean, 264 from the Pacific Ocean, 20 from the Indian Ocean, and 2 from the Mediterranean Sea. The figures for specimens collected in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans further broke down as follows: 148 in the northeastern Atlantic, 126 in the northwestern Atlantic, 26 in the southeastern Atlantic, 6 in the southwestern Atlantic, 43 in the northeastern Pacific, 28 in the northwestern Pacific, 10 in the southeastern Pacific, and 183 in the southwestern Pacific.Guerra et al., 2006
Guerra & González (2009) reported that the total number of recorded giant squid specimens stood at 624. Guerra et al. (2011) gave an updated figure of 677 specimens (see table below). Paxton (2016a) put the total at around 700 as of 2015, of which 460 had been measured in some way. This number has increased substantially in recent years, with 57 specimens recorded from the Sea of Japan over an extraordinary 15-month period in 2014–2015 (beginning with #563). The giant squid nevertheless remains a rarely encountered animal, especially considering its wide distribution and large size,Turner, 1963:23 with Richard Ellis writing that "each giant squid that washes up or is taken from the stomach of a sperm whale is still an occasion for a teuthological celebration".Ellis, 1994a:133
+Records of giant squid specimens sorted by region and method of capture (from Guerra et al., 2011) Region Number of specimens % of total Found stranded or floating (%) From fishing (%) From predators (%) Method of capture unknown (%) NE Atlantic 152 22.5 49 31 15 5 NW Atlantic 148 21.9 61 30 1 8 SE Atlantic 60* 8.9 10 60 17 13 SW Atlantic 6 0.9 50 16 1 33 NE Pacific 43 6.4 7 56 30 7 NW Pacific 30* 4.4 30 35 30 5 SE Pacific 10 1.5 90 10 0 0 SW Pacific 183 27.0 12 41 42 5 Indian Ocean 33** 4.8 6 94 0 0 W Mediterranean 3 0.4 100 0 0 0 Equatorial/tropical 9 1.3 11 44 45 0 All regions 677 100.0 * Underestimates according to Guerra et al. (2011) ** Includes records from Durban, South Africa
Procurement, preservation, and display Preserved giant squid specimens are much sought after for both study and display.Miller, 1983; Landman & Ellis, 1998; Landman et al., 1999; Roper & Jereb, 2010:123; Ablett, 2012 In the mid-1960s, marine biologist and giant squid expert Frederick Aldrich of the Memorial University of Newfoundland organised a "squid squad" with the intent of securing specimens for study. In the 1980s, Aldrich resorted to distributing eye-catching "Wanted" posters offering rewards for "finding and holding" specimens stranded on the Newfoundland coast, "the value being dependent on their condition".[Anon.], 1988:4, 1989:7; Ellis, 1998a:46; Lien, 2000:278; Grann, 2004; see also [NTA], 1966 and identically worded magazine appeal in Aldrich, 1968b Aldrich (1991:459) wrote that "[s]uch efforts were not futile, for in the intervening years I have secured either the specimens or information on 15 animals", though according to Hoff (2003:85) the rewards went unclaimed. Largely through Aldrich's efforts, the Marine Sciences Research Laboratory at Logy Bay, Newfoundland, assembled a substantial early collection of giant squid; as of 1971, it held 8 specimens, with the remains of 3 displayed together in a tank by the main entrance.[Anon.], 1971