Giant Squid Washes Up on Australia Beach.
HOBART, Australia (AP) – A squid as long as a bus and weighing 550 pounds washed up on an Australian beach, officials said Wednesday. “It is a whopper,” said Genefor Walker-Smith, a zoologist who studies invertebrates at the Tasmanian Museum.Giant squid live in waters off southern Australia and New Zealand – where a half-ton colossus, believed to be the world’s largest, was caught in February. They attract the sperm whales that feed on them.
The dead squid, measuring 3 feet across at its widest point and 26 feet from the tip of its body to the end of its tentacles, was found early Wednesday by a beachcomber at Ocean Beach on the island state of Tasmania’s west coast, the museum said.
And no, they didn’t cook it up:
For anyone thinking of a calamari feast, Walker-Smith said giant squid contain high levels of ammonia in their bodies as a buoyancy aid.“It would not taste very nice at all,” she said.
That would be an understatement.
