On Mexico's Sea of Cortez a marine
biologist prepares to encounter
an animal
local fisherman fear
more than sharks.
He is exploring a nether-world
between fantasy and fact,
pursuing a legendary monster of
the deep that does, in fact, exits...
Around the world,
strange carcasses drift ashore,
and fishermen catch huge creatures
they have never seen before.
Bit by bit, the secret life of this
strange animal is becoming known.
We can study its anatomy and the
behavior of its smaller relatives -
the bizarre and wonderful creatures
called cephalopods.
If they did live anywhere
where a man lived,
they would make mince-meat
of him in no time.
Fiction has always branded the giant
squid a ferocious enemy of man,
and some of its close relations
can be terrifying indeed.
Master of the deep ocean, the
sperm whale knows what we cannot,
but recently scientists have
found a way to learn its secrets.
"Whales were known to feed
on squids,
so it made sense to me try to
use the sperm whale
as our "hound dog" to lead
us to the giant squid.
"We really don't know very much
about what happens to whales
once they leave the surface.
So we're working with a mystery
that is hunting a mystery."
Descend with us now
into the dark and mysterious world
of the sperm whale
and its fearsome quarry,
Architeuthis, the giant squid.
For most of human history the ocean
has seemed a terrifying place.
Superstitious sailors reported many
strange sightings at sea.
Their stories summoned up a fantastic
variety of monsters
that threatened them.
These ominous creatures were often
blamed when disaster struck-
as it frequently did.
Perhaps the most feared of all was
called "the Kraken"
a many-armed beast of incredible
size and strength.
But most sea monsters proved to be
harmless or non-existent.
All but "the Kraken" - known
today as the giant squid.
The national Museum of Natural
History in Washington, D.C.
houses over a hundred thousand
squid specimens -
one of the largest collections in
the world.
In this working laboratory,
Smithsonian zoologist Dr. Clyde
Roper is engrossed
in the study of cephalopods,
such as octopuses, cuttlefish,
and squid -
and he welcomes the notoriety
of the giant squid.
"People have to have their monsters,
for some reason,
and, uh, of course squid make a
perfect monster
because I really think that, um,
especially for many
young people today
that the giant squid has become
the new dinosaur."
It's called Architeuthis,
Greek for "the ruling squid".
It is the perfect sea monster
in fantasy,
and a formidable predator in fact.
It dwarfs most other life in the sea.
It deploys a writhing mass of
suckered arms and tentacles
which ensnare its prey and jam it
into a parrot-like beak.
It glares upon the world with the
largest eyes in the animal kingdom.
Clyde Roper has a life-long
passion for the giant squid,
and is determined to see one
alive in its natural habitat.
It all began when he was a teenager,
working as a lobster fisherman
in New Hampshire.
"It doesn't take very long, when
you're working on, on cephalopods...
"squids especially, uh,
become aware
that giant squids actually exist.
"and, as a idealistic young fellow,
I was pretty, um,
incensed that so many...
"mis-truths could be told about
these magnificent animals.
And, as I got deeper and
deeper into it,
I understood why there were so
many misunderstandings
and that is because there were
so few specimens
that had ever been found,
no giant squid had ever
been seen alive and,
until this day, has never been
seen alive and photographed.
So, I became interested in trying
to learn about these animals
just so I could tell the truth about
them and try to dispel the myths."
The aura of terrifying mystery
is not easily dispelled.
A report, by a French warship,
of an encounter with a giant squid
fired the imagination of
novelist Jules Verne.
His classic 20,000 leagues Under the
Sea was published in 1870.
Verne's fictional squid updated the
ship-eating legend of the Kraken.
This squid did not hesitate
to att*ck the Nautilus,
Captain Nemo's electric submarine.
"Giant squid astern, sir!"
The terror of the giant squid
may be fictional,
but its mystery is very real.
Once in a while, a giant squid
carcass will be washed ashore.
Often, these are juvenile squid -
more bizarre and pathetic
than threatening.
Only an expert can tell its species,
and that it could have grown to
may times this size.
In modern times, more and more giant
squid have been caught by fishermen
as they work in deeper water.
They are almost always dead, or nearly so,
when brought aboard.
Rarely does a scientist get to
examine a newly caught specimen,
and never a live one.
Most have turned up in the waters
around New Zealand,
Norway, and Newfoundland.
This one, measuring more than 30
feet, was caught off Tasmania.
From such fragmentary evidence,
scientists conclude that giant
squid live in deep water
and that they are predators.
They are believed to live only a few
years and to grow very rapidly -
no one knows how large.
The biggest actually measured
was almost 60 feet
and weighed about a ton.
It is the world's largest and most
powerful invertebrate,
portrayed as a villain
in many tales of the sea.
"Giant squid have a reputation
for being vindictive
and vicious and fierce."
"They have no reason t be, uh,
vindictive and fierce.
They normally don't interact
with human beings.
Uh, in fact, I wish they would
act a little more,
react with human beings
so that we could find them.
At any rate, I think the reputation
is certainly not deserved at all.
"Because they're so interesting,
on their own account, that we don't
need to make things up about them.
"Squids are really exciting to me
because they have wonderful
adaptations for the,
for their life in the sea,
and these include things like:
like photophores or light organs,
where they can flash and glow,
uh, different colors;
they are fast animals; they're
powerful; some like cat's claws to,
to collect their prey; uh, some
of really are fascinating animals."
Squid are weird and wonderful -
they, and their close relatives,
have been called "aliens
from inner space."
Indeed, they ride the underwater
currents with a serenity
that seems almost supernatural.
Squid are remarkably intelligent,
and their primary nerve fibers are
the largest in the animal kingdom -
a hundred times the diameter
of humans.
Thousands of multi-celled organs,
called chromatophores,
are scattered across their skin.
Each, receives signals directly
from the brain.
This allows cuttlefish and squid to
transform their appearance -
in less than a second.
These changes in appearance
provide camouflage
and a dramatic means of
communication.
From seductive yearnings to
aggressive warnings,
all can be conveyed by resplendent
displays of light and color.
The advanced nervous system
gives them lightning reflexes
and a deadly att*ck.
Off the California coast,
near Monterey,
a submersible robot is lowered
into the deep.
"sonar is..."
Below, is Monterey Canyon,
the deepest submarine fissure along
the continental United States
and probably the most carefully
observed deep water in the world.
Scientists from the Monterey Bay
Aquarium Research Institute
have been studying life in
canyon on a regular basis
for more than a decade.
"Yeah... what's up here to the right."
"Look at this guy, right up..."
Any day, they could discover
a living Architeuthis
and they have observed many
remarkable squid.
They have also observed species of
squid never before seen alive
in their natural element.
Moroteuthis, a slender
and very large squid,
which grows up to 15 feet;
Like the giant squid, almost
nothing is known about its behavior.
Perhaps the strangest
is Vampyroteuthis.
It's been called a "living fossil"
and is completely covered with
what seem to be light organs,
But whose exact function is unknown.
It's a remarkable contortionist,
presenting to its enemies
a ball of spikes.
The spikes are soft however and
probably are used only for detection.
As varied and mysterious as they are,
squid are short-lived,
fast-growing and very prolific.
Shallow water species gather
in huge numbers to breed.
These tentacled couplings
are anything but random -
as males compete savagely
for females.
Many die naturally soon after mating...
if they don't fall victim to the
countless predators that pursue them.
Squid are among the most numerous
free-swimming creatures in the sea,
and a crucial part of the oceanic
food chain.
Today, they support
a massive fishery.
Some two million metric tons of
squid are consumed annually,
much of it in Japan and the Far East.
Small squid are the most
popular sushi.
But everyone has heard
about the giant squid -
and it's gotten to be like
the "Jolly Green Giant"
for Japanese consumers.
"Hungry? - Nissin Seafood Noodle."
Mexico's Sea of Cortez:
Every few years, squid of unusual
size and ferocity are reported here.
Clyde Roper has come to investigate.
The squid live in dark
underwater canyons.
They rise close to the surface
at night to feed.
They're called Dosidicus gigas -
or the Humboldt squid.
For safety, Roper will deploy
a protective shelter
where he can find refuge
if he needs to.
This time of year, Dosidicus still
have a few feet to grow.
But already, some are six feet
long and,
at times, they feed like starving
piranhas.
Roper has never seen Dosidicus
this big before,
but he's eager to have
the experience.
"They have, a, a, an incredible
reputation and, uh,
many of the fishermen say they
would rather
fall into a uh, into the water with,
uh, sharks
in a feeding frenzy rather than in
a, a feeding frenzy of Humboldt squid
because they have been known
to k*ll people
when they fall into the water
with them.
"There, here he comes.
"In fact, they are so aggressive
that they become, uh,
they become cannibalistic."
A hungry squid immediately
begins to feed on the one
that is hooked and defenseless.
Dosidicus often prey on one another -
one thing that could account for the
rapid growth of those survive.
Some might consider this an
experience to be avoided;
but big squid like the Humboldt
don't survive in captivity.
For Roper, the chance to see them in
the wild is a priceless opportunity.
Like smaller squid, Dosidicus shows
vivid flashes of color
when aroused or threatened.
Roper wants a close-up look-
not easy
when the object of study can
deploy two tentacles,
eight arms lined with powerful
suckers,
and a razor sharp beak.
And all this is concealed at times
by clouds of dense ink,
deployed by squid to confuse
their enemies.
Having a squid inside the shelter
was not part of the plan.
Roper tries to give it room to escape
but gets a sharp nip from the
departing squid anyway.
"Ech!"
Later, Roper feels bold enough
to venture out
and observe Dosidicus in open water.
It is as close as he has ever
come to seeing
what Architeuthis might be like
when feeding.
"At first, I was quite apprehensive.
Uh, it was a little scary.
But we were dealing with mostly
individuals.
They were not in a feeding frenzy,
so it, uh, it felt more comfortable.
"Oh, what a great animal.
I was impressed at how incredibly
powerful it is and how it swims...
Clyde Roper is not the first
scientist to be caught up
in the thrill of the hunt for big
squid.
"and to see the funnel so
expanded and,
and moving out so fast,
it was great."
In the nineteen sixties, in fishing
villages throughout Newfoundland,
curious posters appeared.
The reward for a giant squid was
the brainchild
of the late Frederick Aldrich.
An expert on mollusks, Dr. Aldrich
found himself in a region
where giant squid are a proud
part of local history.
Back in October 1873, Newfoundland
fishermen came upon a giant squid
The squid wrapped a tentacle
around their boat.
But one fisherman,
a 12-year-old boy,
quickly hacked the tentacle off,
and the monster retreated.
Only a month later,
Newfoundland fishermen hauled
up a giant squid 32 feet long.
This was the first complete specimen
ever examined by scientists.
And it was the first of many
giant squid stranded or caught
by Newfoundland fishermen.
But examining the dead was not enough
for Frederick Aldrich -
he went after a live one.
"Fred was really one of the first
people to actually want to go out
and try to find giant squid.
"I think Fred liked the mythology
and he liked the, the, the
giantness, the bigness of it all.
In 1989, Aldrich managed to mount
a deep sea expedition
to look for the giant squid.
It was an enterprise that has been
compared to parachuting at night
into an area of the United States
picked at random -
and hoping to see a grizzly bear.
But Aldrich was determined.
The sub descended a thousand feet
in an area
where giant squid have often
washed ashore.
It was literally a sh*t in the dark.
Bait attracted an array
of bottom fish.
For ten hours Aldrich watched
and waited,
but Architeuthis ignored
his invitation.
I am not disappointed.
The fact that I didn't see one
does not effect my understanding
of these animals whatsoever.
I never really held out much hope
that I would see one,
because, oh, Lord, the ocean is so
big and my ship so small.
The brief expedition ended and
Aldrich d*ed a few years later.
As deep water technology
has improved,
there have been more
and more expeditions
that could encounter a giant squid.
Many new species have been observed.
And some have been seen that could
indeed be called monstrous.
This is the biggest shark ever seen
in the deep sea.
A pacific sleeper shark that turned
up in Japan's Suruga Bay.
Well over 23 feet in length,
it loomed so large the camera
couldn't see it all.
After investigating the sub for
five suspenseful minutes,
the giant went way,
leaving observing scientists excited
- and a bit relieved.
Once dismissed as mere
sensationalism,
the search for the giant squid
continues to gain impressive
proponents today.
One is Dr. Malcolm Clarke,
a specialist in sperm whales
and oceanic squid.
"I think the good has always
got to have a balance of evil.
You, you see the beauty in,
in the sea.
Many of, uh, the fish are
very beautiful
to look at, uh, and, uh, have
wonderful silvery sides,
they make pretty lights.
Uh, that's the beauty -
you need a few big-teethed,
big stomached monsters to go
along with it.
As a young graduate student,
Malcolm Clarke conducted research
aboard a factory ship
that hunted sperm whales -
once considered sea monsters,
in their own right.
Little was known about sperm
whale biology
despite centuries of k*lling them.
Only dwindling populations put
scientists aboard whaling boats
to study the huge animals.
Clarke inspected hundreds
of sperm whale stomachs.
One thing he found were the beaks
of deep-sea squid,
too tough to be digested.
This proved that squid are the sperm
whale's primary source of food.
And Clarke amassed a huge
collection of beaks -
as many as eighteen thousand
from a single whale.
Among them, are many beaks
of the giant squid.
"This came from a giant squid
that was taken from the stomach of
a sperm whale caught in the Azores.
Uh, so that, uh, it wasn't a
tremendously large one.
It was probably, uh, thirty, in
excess of thirty feet in length.
So it was quite a big squid, but,
um, not one of the biggest.
Uh, but certainly, it's got
very, very powerful jaws.
So that this is very,
very formidable.
And, uh, of course, if they did live
anywhere where a man lived, eh,
they would make mincemeat
of him in no time.
On a remote shore in New Zealand,
sperm whales have stranded.
What causes whales to strand
is still a mystery.
Clyde Roper and Malcolm Clarke
undertake the grim task
of examining the carcasses
and discover evidence of their
common passion, the giant squid.
The skins of sperm whales are like
weathered maps of ancient battles.
The circular scars were left by
sharp-toothed suckers of giant squid,
marking their last desperate
struggles
in the jaws of the Leviathan.
"They have fifty teeth.
These are in a, uh, form two rows
in the lower jaw.
They don't have any upper
teeth usually.
Uh, but the jaw is very, very narrow.
It can be about fifteen feet long
and, uh, be a foot across.
So, it's very, very long and narrow.
Uh, and it's a snapping jaw, it's
rather like some of the crocodiles.
It can probably, uh, snap shut
very rapidly
and they snap this jaw against
the upper jaw.
Bang!
And, in that movement,
they squeeze the squid
and it doesn't matter that the
teeth don't damage them much;
the squid will virtually
go paralyzed.
They, they don't like being
squeezed, squids don't -
It's one of their features -
not like humans.
And, uh, if they're squeezed
by the jaws, with these teeth,
and there's a big, very powerful
tongue right at back of the jaws to,
to push it down the throat.
Experts on both whale and squid,
Clarke and Roper are uniquely
to execute a new strategy
in the search of Arthieuthis.
"Whales were known to feed on squid
right from the very beginning,
in the earliest days of, uh,
of the whale hunting expeditions,
and some of those
were actually giant squid.
So it made sense to me to try to use
the sperm whale as our 'hound dog'
to, to lead us to, to the giant squid
and that quest has brought on
this current expedition."
Off the Azores,
Roper and Clarke help to deploy a
hydrophone to listen for sperm whales.
They, and the other scientists on this expedition,
are combining their search for
the giant squid
with research on
the squid's most formidable enemy.
Hydrophones can detect the sounds of
sperm whales from several miles away
- long before they can be
spotted visually.
But the whales themselves
have excellent hearing
and often keep their distance
from boats.
Today, the scientists are in luck.
The whales are feeling sociable.
A group of sperm whales
is playing nearby.
Female and their young
come to feed here
in the warm waters of the mid-Atlantic
and announce their presence
with an excited chorus of sounds.
"Good grief!
It is an audience clapping.
And they're clapping at us.
When sperm whales gather,
this is anything but 'a silent world'.
A distinct series of clicks is called
a "coda" used for communication.
Deciphering the sounds is a challenge
for behavioral experts like
Cornell University's Kurt Fristrup.
"Now that's one of the unknowns.
That could very well be used
for echo-raging, sonar."
Sometimes divers can get very close
to sperm whales.
It's a tremendous thrill
to be kindly received
by the most powerful predators
on earth.
Up close,
a different sound is sometimes heard.
This loud and singular noise
could be a warming
or even a w*apon
- loud enough to stun a whale's prey.
The sperm whale's head is
fully one third of its total weight
and most of it is nose
- the largest in the animal kingdom.
This is where the sounds are created.
They're generated
in the front of the nose,
then redirected as they resound
powerful off the whale's skull.
No one knows exactly how.
This remarkable organ also holds
tons of spermaceti oil.
By regulating its temperature,
the whale may be able
to control their buoyancy.
This would allow them
to conserve energy
on their long dives to hunt for squid.
In any case,
the whales seem in perfect control
when they sleep
- suspended virtually
just below the waves and swells.
This remarkable behavior has only
recently been reported and filmed.
Mother sperm whales are
doting parents.
Their calves are slow to mature.
They stay in close contact
with their mothers,
but their ability to dive is limited.
A mature female needs more than
half a ton of food a day...
and her food source
- large oceanic squid-
may be thousands of feet below.
So she must leave her calf
at the surface
- sometimes for almost an hour.
The calves are
incredibly trusting and playful
and will often approach
and even nuzzle a diver.
This one offers its mouth
for inspection.
The mother can go down
more than half a mile
- a plunge deep into the unknown.
"We really don't know
how sperm whales locate their prey,
how they hunt,
how they locate their prey
and how they actually
consume their prey.
There are several hypotheses:
one is that they use echolocation
and get the signals back that way...
Somehow sperm whales "see" the world
around them
through a panorama
of reflected sounds.
This certainly helps them
navigate underwater,
but can they detect and catch
soft-bodied squids?
The scientists seek
another explanation.
"They can use the,
their eyes to see the bioluminescence
that might be created
either by the squids themselves
or by the squids
swimming through the water
and creating a swirl of
bioluminescence.
"When they swim through the water
they disturb all the little organisms
that are in the water,
and these little organisms,
because they're disturbed,
set off a glowing or flashing.
"Perhaps the whales then key
on these strips of bioluminescence
or streaks of bioluminescence
and will be able to home in
on the squid in that way.
"So, it's a little difficult
to know exactly what it is
and that's just one more thing
we could see
if we could get down into the sea
with these giant whales."
To follow whales into the deep
has long been a favorite theme
of poets and a dream of engineers.
Now, with support from
the National Geographic Society,
one man has managed to do it.
He's Greg Marshall,
inventor of a system called crittercam.
It's a simple concept that has proven
very difficult to execute.
"I had the idea for the crittercam
Since then, basically,
every waking moment,
I've spent thinking about, developing,
working on making this thing happen."
In early experiment,
cameras were strapped
to the backs of sea turtles
before being risked in the wild.
"What motivates me is the,
the possibility of discovering
totally new phenomena of nature,
seeing things
we've never seem before."
The spirited fur seal
provided a greatest challenge.
A smaller, more rugged camera
needed to enter its frenetic world.
With sperm whales,
every step
from deployment to retrieval
has been fraught with difficulty.
"It's only through, you know,
really carefully engineering
and then some trial and error
and experience
the field that we've, that we've finally been able to succeed
in the way that we have."
After years of experimentation,
crittercam is finally ready for
serious field work in the Azores.
The scientists are hopeful that the
camera can survive a deep water dive,
and be located
and recovered afterwards.
"Um, underwater it weights nothing,
of course,
so that, uh, it just floats right back
after it's released from the animal.
Floats back at about
this orientation and,
uh, will stick out of the water
about this far."
The system must be able
to endure extreme pressure
and record picture
in almost total darkness.
The compact unit includes lights;
instruments to record depth,
temperature and sound;
acoustic and radio homing transmitters;
and a video camera able to
amplify light over 50,000 times.
"Greg! Come over!"
The first task is often the hardest
- getting close to the whales.
"You guys,
can direct us to where it is, okay?"
Scientists have used these techniques
to attach instruments to whales,
but no one has tried
to attach a camera before.
They are breaking new ground.
"It was a challenge to get close
to these whales,
an emotional challenge.
Uh. Clearly, we'd heard
all the stories of, of the, the havoc
that the sperm whales had wreaked
on ships in the past and so forth and,
you know, I, I didn't know,
what, uh, reaction of a,
of the whales might be to us.
So, when we first started approaching
the whales,
I was a bit nervous,
there's no question about it."
The camera can be attached
by a tag the size of a paper clip
- or with a large suction cup.
A successful deployment depends
entirely on the whims of the whales.
At the moment, they appear to want
a little time to themselves.
"We spend a lot of time on the water
trying to get close to the whales,
a lot of time on the water,
and you have to do that because
the whales are only at the surface
of a few minutes every hour.
Uh, so we have to be perfectly
in position,
anticipating where the whales
are coming up, uh,
in order to place ourselves
close enough
so that we can get to them
during and opportunity deploy."
"You've got whales, uh,
right ahead of you.
They'll be off you, uh, starboard bow,
about a hundred and fifty meters.
Uh, there's a whole gaggle of them,
they're a social group.
Three or four small ones
and a couple of large ones.
"What we've found,
for the most part,
is that the whales tend to be
quite curious about us.
If we're quiet in their environment,
we've found that,
as often as not, they tend to actually
come over and investigate us.
The system is launch-
and we are riding in a pod of whales.
The clicking noises are made
by the whales,
and for the first time
we can see exactly how their sounds
relate to their behavior.
It's a revelation
how close the whale are-
in their constant calling and
with their bodies touching one another.
Then, as dolphins join the array,
it's like an undersea dance.
They sometimes
ride the subsurface waves
generated by the forward thrust
of the whales
- these mountains of movement.
Crittercam is working well
near the surface.
Now comes the real test
as whales descend into the deep.
They will disappear for
more than 20 minutes.
The scientist are left alone
with their hopes and their fears.
"If we don't retrieve the system,
we get none of the data,
we get none of the images,
none of the audio, we learn nothing.
Unless we recover it, it's a bust."
A messenger form another world,
crittercam returns from the deep.
It has detached before
it should have,
but its homing signal is
loud and clear.
After eleven year of trial and error
and months on the high seas,
a moment of truth has arrived.
"Look at that, look at that,
what is that?
That's the... the blowhole
...look, puffs up there...
The camera is tethered about six feet
behind the blowhole and face forward
- we are with several whales
diving together.
On the right, a juvenile.
This could be a training dive.
Calves only gradually learn to dive
as deep as their mothers.
The clicking sounds appear to be
coming from more than one whale.
Some scientists believe that
each whale has its own signature coda.
Tapes like this one could help
support the theory.
It's darker and deeper now
and another whale
comes into view at the upper left.
Strange new sounds are heard
- growls, grunts-even squeals.
No one has conclusively identified
these sounds with sperm whales before.
Now the whales are over nine hundred
feet deep and a strange thing happens.
They almost stop and one moves back
as if inspecting crittercam...
it's head and eye are just
to the right off camera.
There is a long moment
of consideration and then,
apparently satisfied,
the whales speed up again,
going deeper still.
There's two,
there's two of them there.
This is the calf.
the pressure is enormous-
over five hundred pounds
per square inch.
Until the 1960's,
no conventional submarine
could descend this deep
without being crushed
like an eggshell.
How sperm whales survive
these depths is still not understood.
But they've been doing it
for million of year
- lured here by vast bounty of
large oceanic squid.
They will not find Architeuthis
this time,
but each moment is a revelation
for Roper and his colleagues.
"The interesting thing here,
you can, you can hear that these
different coda that we're hearing,
um, each one is
slightly different and,
and every once in a while
we hear a buzz.
"Now the whales have stopped.
The, the camera is pointing
right down,
uh, right down into the skin
of the, of the whale
that's, uh, that's carrying
the crittercam.
"There see, now I'm hearing that,
hearing that buzz which is...
That's fantastic, that's so...
Yeah, that's a fantastic sound,
that long, long buzzing sound and,
uh, this is, uh, what, we believe is
the sonar that they're using for,
when they're actually hunting,
or have actually picked up
a prey organism
and they're zeroing-in on the prey
and getting closer and closer to it.
"Now they're starting
to move again and,
uh, have turned and turned back
towards the surface
because now we can see,
uh, the lighted,
uh, the background that's lighted.
So they're heading back up
to the surface.
"Whoa! There comes
a, a, a whale right across,
another one,
right across in front of the camera."
"There's two more.
Look at that!"
"And there's a, there's a third one
over on that side on the right.
So, that makes four whales...
The, the crittercam has been
knocked off,
that's how closely, uh, the whales were
to each other,
really rubbing along,
uh, side-by-side."
No giant squid was found.
But this and other crittercam dives
make the expedition a stunning success.
"We were able,
for the very, very first time,
to enter into the deep-sea domain
of the sperm whale.
By playing these instrument
on the whale, um,
we were able to get down to
many hundreds of meters deep
and how the animal actually behaves
down in those depths."
But the sperm whales seem blissfully
unaware of our efforts to enter
and understand their world.
They have appointments
to keep far below,
which we can still see
only our imagination.
One day,
in the not too distance future,
a whale may bring us
a living portrait of Architeuthis-
and one of the last great challenges
in natural science
and photography will be met.
But for the moment,
we must contemplate these great whales
as we always have,
fascinated by their physical powers,
tantalized by the secrets they hold
in their great brains.
Two-thirds of our planet lies
in the deep ocean,
and that mysterious realm
is their home.
In search of the giant squid,
Clyde Roper and his colleagues seem
undaunted by the obstacles they face
- happily engrossed in the hunt
for the creature that fascinates them.
Perhaps there is much truth
in John Steinbeck's observation,
that men need sea monsters
in their personal oceans-
that an ocean
with its nameless creatures
would be like sleep without dreams.
National Geographic: Sea Monsters - Search for the Giant Squid (1998)
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