giant squid
The giant squid is a type of mollusk, closely related to octopuses, and is characterized as a giant; Because it is the largest squid on the face of the globe, with a length of more than 40 feet and weighing about a ton, and despite this large size, the squid lives for short periods estimated at no more than five years, and it is one of the animals that is rarely seen alive.
as most Studies were applied to him after his death, but in 2004 Japanese researchers took the first pictures of a live giant squid in its natural environment, and this was followed in July 2012 by filming a live adult squid in its natural environment off Shishijima, and in 2015 a video was taken of it, and in the following will be the talk About the giant squid in some detail.
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The habitat and food of the giant squid
The giant squid is widespread in all the world's oceans, and is usually found near the continental and island slopes of the South Atlantic Ocean around South Africa, the North Pacific Ocean around Japan, the Southwest Pacific Ocean around New Zealand and Australia, to the North Atlantic Ocean, especially Newfoundland, Norway, and the British Isles Northern Spain.
the Azores and the oceanic Madeira, but it is rarely found near-polar and tropical latitudes, and the caught specimens indicate that squid lives in large ranges of depths, ranging from 300-1000 meters, which is equivalent to 980-380 feet, It is one of the organisms that rarely comes to the surface, and recent studies have shown that the giant squid feeds on other squid species, and deep sea fish.
Giant squid reproductive cycle
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It is believed that the giant squid reaches sexual maturity at the age of about three years, but the females reach this stage in a larger size than the males, and this is done by producing sperms in the posterior individual testis of the male giant squid, and then these animals are stored in a rectangular bag, Or needham's cyst.
which is transmitted through the male organ during mating, and the male organ is also strong, with a length of more than 90 centimeters, which is equivalent to 35 inches, while the females produce large quantities of eggs by one ovary medium at the rear end of the The cavity, and if these eggs mature, they pass outside the oval glands, and then through the lateral glands.
where the importance of these glands centers in the production of a gel used to keep the eggs together until they are laid, and sometimes the size of the egg exceeds 5 kg, and its average is from 0.5 to 1.4 millimeters, and a length of 0.3 to 0.7 millimeters, but discussions have differed about how the sperms are transferred to the egg mass, as it is believed that they are transferred in the seminal vesicles, which the male injects into the female.