Free Sea Monsters by Mary Pope Osborne

Most
marine
animals we know about live near the surface of the ocean. But many other creatures live deep beneath the sea.

    Sometimes an animal often called a “sea monster” swims up to the surface from its home in the deep. This scary-looking animal is known as thegiant squid.
    Marine comes from the Latin word mare , which means “sea.”
Giant Squids
    There are many kinds of squids, but the
giant squid
is one of the largest. Because giant squids live deep in the sea, we do not know a lot about them.
    Squids are invertebrates (in-VUR-tuh-brayts). Invertebrates do not have a backbone.

    We do know that giant squids have huge heads and eyes. They have strong, hard beaks, eight arms, and twotentacles. The tentacles are much longer than the arms. They can grow to over thirty feet long! Powerful suckers lined with teeth cover each arm. The tentacles have suckers only at the ends.

The Biggest Eyes
    Giant squids have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. Their eyes are about fifteen inches wide. Think soccer balls or basketballs! Giant squids need their large eyes to see in the dark, deep water.
    The giant squid has been photographed at depths of 3,000 feet.
Catching Prey
    Squids are
carnivores
(KAR-nuh-vorz), or meat-eaters. Giant squids eat marine animals, but experts are not sure exactly what kind.
    Carnivore comes from the Latin word carnis , which means “meat.”
    They catch their prey with theirtentacles. Then they coil their arms around their victim just like a python.
    Finally, giant squids bite their prey into pieces with their powerful beaks. They have a bony tongue called a
radula
(RAA-juh-luh). The radula has many tinyteeth on it. These teeth break the food down into even smaller bits.

Movement
    Giant squids can move as fast as twenty-three miles an hour. When they move quickly, they spurt water from a
siphon
(SY-fun) in their mantles. They take water in and then shoot it out.
    A siphon is like a tube.
    The force of the water pushes the squids where they want to go. Squids use their strong fins to move forward toward their food.
Colossal Squids
    For many years, scientists thought that giant squids were the largest squids. But in 1925, scientists found sometentacles in asperm whale’s stomach. These tentacles were different from the giant squid’s. They came from a squid that was even larger!
    Scientists named this squid the
colossal
(kuh-LAH-sul)
squid.
Since then, othertentacles have been found in whales. Fishermen have also pulled up parts of colossal squids’ bodies.
    Colossal means “really enormous”! Huge! Gigantic!
A Great Find
    In 2003, fishermen spotted a colossal squid feeding off the coast ofAntarctica. They managed to haul it into their boat. It, too, died when they got it on board.
    It is rare to see the entire body of a colossal squid. Scientists found that it had two huge beaks and small teeth that looked like a parrot’s. Sharp hooks on its arms turned in circles. Its body was wider and fatter than thegiant squid’s. But we still aren’t certain how long colossal squids grow to be.
The Squids and theWhales
    Sperm whales feed on all kinds of squids, even the biggest. In fact, some sperm whales have been found to have more than 15,000 squid beaks in their stomachs!
    Sperm whales can grow up to fifty feet long. They dive very deep into the ocean and can hold their breath for two hours! No one has ever seen a sperm whale fight agiant orcolossal squid. But scientists often see scars on the whales’ skin that were made by the squids’ suckers. Imagine what a battle
that
must have been!

New Squid Discovered
    In 2001, underwater cameras filmed a very weird squid. No one had ever seen anything like it.
    An expert from the National Museum of Natural History studied the film. He saw an animal with a tiny body and ten long arms, each about twenty-three feet.
    But the most unusual thing about this squid was its two large fins. They flapped around its small body just like elephant