How we found the giant squid Edith Widder
the Kraken a beast so terrifying it was
said to devour men and ships and whales
and so enormous it could be mistaken for
an island in assessing the merits of
such tales it’s probably wise to keep in
mind that all sailors saw that the only
difference between a fairy tale and a
sea story is a fairy tale begins once
upon a time and a sea story begins this
ain’t no every fish that gets away
grows with every telling of the tale
nevertheless there are giants in the
ocean and we now have video proof as
those of you that saw the Discovery
Channel documentary are no doubt aware I
was one of the three scientists on this
expedition that took place last summer
off Japan I’m the short one the other
two are dr. suni Miku vedera
and dr. Steve O’Shea I owe my
participation in this now historic event
to Ted in 2010 there was a TED event
called mission blue held aboard the
Lindblad Explorer in the Galapagos as
part of the fulfillment of Sylvia Earls
Ted wish I spoke about a new way of
exploring the ocean one that focuses on
attracting animals instead of scaring
them away Mike deGruy was also invited
and he spoke with great passion about
his love of the ocean and he also talked
to me about applying my approach to
something he’s been involved with for a
very long time which is the hunt for the
giant squid it was Mike that got me
invited to the squid summit a gathering
of squid experts at the Discovery
Channel that summer during Shark Week I
gave a talk on unobtrusive viewing an
optical luring of deep-sea squid in
which I emphasized the importance of
using quiet unobtrusive platforms for
exploration this came out of hundreds of
dives I have made
farting around in the dark using these
platforms and my impression that I saw
more animals working from the
submersible than I did with either of
the remote operated vehicles but that
could just be because the submersible
has a wider field of view but I also
felt like I saw more animals working
with the Tiburon than the van Tana two
vehicles with the same field of view but
different propulsion systems so my
suspicion was that it might have
something to do with the amount of noise
they made so I set up a hydrophone on
the bottom of the ocean and I had each
of these flyby at the same speed and
distance and recorded the sound they
made the Johnson ceiling which you can
probably just barely hear here uses
electric thrusters very very quiet the
Tiburon also uses electric powered
thrusters it’s also pretty quiet but a
bit noisier but most deep diving ROV
these days use hydraulics and they sound
like the Ventana I think that’s got to
be scaring a lot of animals away so for
the deep-sea squid hunt I proposed using
an optical lure attached to a camera
platform with no thrusters no motors
just a battery-powered camera and the
only illumination coming from red light
that’s invisible to most deep-sea
animals that are adapted to see plant
primarily blue that’s visible to our eye
but it’s the equivalent of infrared in
the deep sea so this camera platform
which we called the Medusa could just be
thrown off the back of the ship attached
to a float at the surface with over
2,000 feet of line it would just float
around passively carried by the currents
and the only light visible to the
animals in the deep would be the blue
light of the optical lure which we
called the electronic jellyfish or a
jelly because it was designed to imitate
the bioluminescent display of the common
deep-sea jellyfish at Ola now this
pinwheel of light that the Attalla
produces is known as a bioluminescent
burglar alarm and it’s a form of defense
the reason that the electronic jellyfish
worked as a lure is not because giant
squid eat jellyfish but it’s because
this jellyfish only resorts to producing
this light when it’s being chewed on by
a predator and its only hope for escape
may be to attract the attention of a
larger predator that will attack its
attacker and thereby afforded an
opportunity for escape it’s a scream for
help a latch dished attempt for escape
and a common form of defense in the deep
sea the approach worked
whereas all previous expeditions had
failed to garner a single video glimpse
of the giant we managed six and the
first triggered wild excitement oh my
god
it was like it was teasing us doing a
kind of sand dance now you see me now
you don’t and we had for such teasing
appearances and then on the fist it came
in and totally wowed us
Oh Marty what really wowed me about that
was the way it came in up over the
e-jelly and then attacked the enormous
thing next to it which I think it
mistook for the predator on the e-jelly
but even more incredible was the footage
shot from the Triton submersible what
was not mentioned in the discovery
documentary was that the bait squid that
dr. Koo vedera used of 1 meter long
Diamondback squid had a light attached
to it a squid jig of the type that
longline fishermen use and I think it
was this light that brought the Giant in
now what you’re seeing is the
intensified cameras view under red light
and that’s all dr. kubodera could see
when the giant comes in here and then he
got so excited he turned on his
flashlight if he wanted to see better
and the giant didn’t run away
so he risked turning on the white lights
on the submersible bringing a creature
of legend from the misty history into a
high-resolution video it was absolutely
breathtaking
and had this animal had its feeding
tentacles intact and fully extended it
would have been as tall as a two-story
house how could something that big live
in our ocean and yet remain unfilmed
until now we’ve only explored about five
percent of our ocean there are great
discoveries yet to be made down there
fantastic creatures representing
millions of years of evolution and
possibly bioactive compounds that could
benefit us in ways that we can’t even
yet imagine yet we have spent only a
tiny fraction of the money on ocean
exploration that we’ve spent on space
exploration we need a NASA like
organization for ocean exploration
because we need to be exploring and
protecting our life-support systems here
on earth we need thank you
exploration is the engine that drives
innovation innovation drives economic
growth so let’s all go exploring but
let’s do it in a way that doesn’t scare
the animals away or as Mike deGruy once
said if you want to get away from it all
and see something you’ve never seen or
have an excellent chance of seeing
something that no one’s ever seen
getting a sub he should have been with
us for this admit adventure we miss him