Giant Squid On Display At London Museum

[glen]

Giant squid (Archie) goes on display - The Natural History Museum, London

28 Feb 2006

A giant squid, Architeuthis dux, was recently put on display at the London Natural History Museum's Darwin Centre tank room.



The 8.62-metre squid, called Archie, was caught off the coast of the Falkland Islands in March 2004.



Archie is not the largest specimen ever caught, that record belongs to an 18.5-metre specimen caught in Island Bay, New Zealand in 1880. Archie was caught live and is almost complete making it a very important specimen for research. Initial investigations suggest that Archie is female although this will be confirmed by future study.



The final home for 'Archie' is a specially made acrylic tank filled with a 10 per cent solution of formol-saline as a preservative. The tank was constructed in California by Casco Ltd., the people who made the tanks for Damien Hirsts' various artworks of animals in formaldehyde. The tank is 9 metres and 45 centimetres long and stands on a 1-metre stainless steel stand so that the giant squid can be viewed from any angle.



[url="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2006/feb/news_5255.html"]http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2006/feb/news_5255.html[/url]

[peejaypee]

thats awesome! <img src='http://www.squidfish.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ohmy.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> how big is the one at the melbourne aquarium?

pj

[glen]

the melbourne squid frozen in an ice block (at the melbourne aquarium) was a tiny 7 metres long...!!!! <img src='http://www.squidfish.net/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />



[url="http://www.squidfish.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=939"]http://www.squidfish.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=939[/url]