What Big Eyes You Have, Beak Boy

How's this for a natural, almost predetermined confluence of news stories? This week we saw the first photos ever taken of a live giant squid and we were also treated to a separate press release detailing aspects of the giant squid's sex life. Sure. Maybe it's just coincidence. But I prefer to think of it as proof that the media establishment is looking out for us little guys after all. Or that the giant squid has hired the services of a new PR firm. Your choice.

So, aside from tales of the kraken and vague memories of Captain Nemo fighting a giant squid in his sub, the Nautilus, what do you know about the giant squid? All squid (giant or otherwise) have 8 arms like an octopus, but also have 2 additional tentacles that are much longer than the other arms. The giant squid's arms and tentacles have hundreds of suction cups rimmed with sharp teeth, so that the squid can not only wrap his arms around his prey, but can also latch onto his prey using both suction and perforation. Giant squids have the largest eye (up to one foot in diameter) in the animal kingdom. Despite tales of monster squid over 60 feet in length, they probably only get up 40 feet long and weigh only a ton.

This (finally) brings us to the sex part of the story. And that's clearly just in time, since half of you were just putting on your pants to go find some fried calamari. Try to picture this:

"Although mating has never been observed in giant squid, it is thought that what happens is that the male injects his sperm packages into the female's arms. The process is likely to be a fairly violent affair as the female is probably not that keen on being injected. This is a problem for the amorous male as females are normally a third bigger than they are.

But males get round their inferior size by being endowed with a particularly long penis, which means they can inject the female without having to get too close to her chomping beak. The male's sexual organ is actually a bit like a high-pressure fire hose and is normally nearly as long as his body — excluding legs and head.

But having such a big penis does have one drawback: it seems that co-ordinating eight legs, two feeding tentacles, and a huge penis, whilst fending off an irate female, is a bit too much to ask, and one of the two males stranded on the Spanish coast had accidentally injected himself with sperm packages in the legs and body. And this does not seem to have been an isolated incident since two of the eight males that had stranded in the north-east Atlantic before had also accidentally inseminated themselves."

Ouch. Everyone reading this should now consider themselves lucky that they are not giant squid. We human males may have trouble finding the mark every now and then, and human females may often wish the human male would simply go fuck himself, but… none of us have ever gotten a sperm packet injected into his or her leg because of it. It could be worse.

Comments:

• Hmmm, not unlike my feeble attempts at my first time with sex not too many years ago.

  Posted by Kevin  on  10/02/05  at  04:43 AM
  
  

• Maybe that’s their way of masturbating…

  Posted by Ed  on  10/02/05  at  05:22 AM
  
  
Page 1 of 1 pages

Name:

Email:

Location:

URL:

Smileys

Remember my personal information

Notify me of follow-up comments?

<< Back to main