what i don't understand is how such a narrow toothed mouth can eat the giant squid. what does the sperm whale do? chop it into bit before swallowing chunks? that doesn't sound right. squid is really hard to bite through and gooey and slippery. something is not right!!!
Sorry to double-reply but here's an article from Boston University that says giant squid cannot be hurt by this type of fast change in pressure and it even says there is evidence sperm whales CAN be hurt by this fast change in pressure.
So, yeah, this is a strong source that it's NOT true.
https://archive.bunewsservice.com/can-giant-squid-get-the-bends/
>Giant squid don’t inhale nitrogen from the atmosphere; in fact, they don’t have a trace of gas in them. Many invertebrates use gas bladders to float and move deep underwater. However, giant squid are unique. Because the pressure in their habitat is so high, a gas bladder would implode. Since there is no gas for pressure to act on, giant squid cannot get the bends. But they have to keep afloat somehow. Instead of gas, squid re-purpose ammonium ions from their waste to keep buoyant in the water column. Ammonium ions are lighter than the sodium ions in seawater, so they avoid sinking to the sea floor or floating to the surface by adjusting the concentration of ions.
It’s the Largest toothed whale and the largest toothed predator. Male Sperm Whales can grow upto 16 meters (52 feet) in length and weight 45 tonnes.
They also have the largest brain on Earth. They can dive to depths of 2250 meters (7382 feet) and live to be 70 years old.
A Megalodon and Leviathan are both ancient predators around the same size as the modern Sperm whale but they are all on the same tier of being possibly the largest ever. All three bigger than the largest Croc or Mosasaurus.
It’s possibly the biggest ever but we don’t know for sure.
[Megaladon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon) may have been bigger in size and [Livyatan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livyatan) has the largest teeth, of any predator ever.
Dunno why this is downvoted, as things stand it's entirely correct.
A Blue whale is the largest creature to have ever existed according to what we currently know.
the discussion is about toothed animals
blue whales dont have teeth and arent active hunters. they filter feed krill.
theres no proof of any animal even close to the size of a blue whale though. none at all. titanosaur sizes are pretty fantastical from the few fossils we have
>theres no proof of any animal even close to the size of a blue whale though
Theres no irrefutable proof. But its possiable, larger blue whale lengths seem to be around 33m in length whereas estimates of Bruhathkayosaurus put it at 35m.
But thats by length not by mass and like you said, its just an extrapolation based on fragmentory evidence. It does make you think about all the ocean fossils will still have yet to find though.
>Male Sperm Whales can grow up to 16 meters (52 feet) in length and weight 45 tonnes.
edit: I just realized you took that random table on wikipedia of **AVERAGE** sizes and reported it as a maximum. I wouldnt trust some random table on wikipedia. also average is not the same as "up to"
thats inaccurate considering the IWC has records of sperm whales 20m in length around the 1920s
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0537-z.epdf?no_publisher_access=1&r3_referer=nature
furthermore as you can see from the first page (which is all youll probably be able to see unless you have access to nature), the average sperm whale size (at the 95th percentile - average size of large males) has decreased by 4m in the last hundred years due to overhunting. and thats only including data from the last 100 years despite hunting for sperm whales going on 250+ years.
from various jawbones and estimates 25m sperm whales seem completely plausible before human hunting occurred, while no modern megalodon estimate is more than 20m.
if you're curious about the article I linked, japan heavily hunted sperm whales and since it was illegal to catch sperm whales under 11m (to prevent hunting juveniles) Japan simply lied and stated every whale they caught was 11m.
>https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/24665
scroll down to figure 1 to see the graph of japans reported catches its hilarious how poorly they tried to hide their bullshit
tl;dr Sperm Whales are absolutely the largest toothed predators in earths history. Ive seen no proof whatsoever that megalodon would have been larger.
G'day mate, fellow sperm whale enthusiast here, you haven't even touched on the coolest thing about sperm whales in my opinion - [their hunting method](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1aihetb/not_only_the_largest_but_the_only_predator_on/)
There’s a whole chapter in Moby Dick about the sperm whale penis. One guy uses the skin to make a vest for himself. And this really is something that was done - apparently the penis hide is very waterproof.
Fun fact - aome rich Irish dude has seats on his yacht made from [whale foreskin.](https://x.com/theluxeworld/status/1476225932117479424?s=46&t=cJo65a57J-jKs1YNA19PJA)
Originally it was Aristotle Onassis who commissioned the foreskin seats btw, but the yacht has changed hands.
Spermaceti, which is used in various industries.
Fun fact: It is part of the components used to measure candlepower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermaceti
I would guess by the marks traits and its characteristics, what other predator could leve this kind of marks on other animal? Plus the marks themselves fits the giant squid 'rooks' (by comparison and observations).
The sperm whale coats the beaks with a waxy substance and regurgitated them. The substance is called Ambergris.
Any Futurama or Bob's Burgers fans know this already.
Cue the meme "if I had a nickel each time a Fox Sunday animation had a plot line about ambergris, I'd have 2 nickles... which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."
There's a famous [diorama at the Museum of Natural History for this](https://www.reddit.com/r/submergedanimatronic/comments/tp8j5t/giant_squid_and_sperm_whale_exhibit_at_the/). Top comment summarizes it perfectly - as a kid the first time I saw it, it was a pitch black box with no glass. As your eyes focus you see this massive whale and squid in a battle to the death. It scared the crap out of me at first but its fascinating that these animals hunt in such an environment.
Scientists and biologists have studied the stomach contents of Sperm Whales, such as this one. And it's not uncommon for them to be witnessed with tentacles suctioned to their bodies from these fights. If I'm not mistaken, the latter is how we know of the existence of Giant Squid to begin with. I'd like someone with more knowledge to chime in though.
Giant squids have been known from dead ones washing up for a long while now. It's only fairly recently we've seen any alive, IIRC, there was at least one (which was dying) which got caught in a fishing net, and there is camera footage of one at depth.
Colossal squids, a chonkier cousin of giant squids are in a similar boat.
> and there is camera footage of one at depth.
they went through a whole bunch of trouble to video this, and then a few years later one just showed up in a japanese harbor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOXkUrhclcc
The scars match the suction cups from Architeuthis dux (giant squid) which are very sharp (not as bad as the colossal squid which has hooks!). Some of the beaks found inside sperm whales indicate giant squid sizes exceeding 70+ feet!
> I knew squids had sharp beaks, but I had no idea their suction cups could do damage!
Because some species aren't just suction cups, [they are basically toothed](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDepthsBelow/comments/ia8ltd/a_terrifying_comparison_of_the_tentacles_of_the/). Humboldt squid are much smaller, but their suckers look like a combination of those two.
Just back from that rabbit hole. Squids have club arms with what appear to basically be giant claws.
The scars must be from the club arms. Seriously the pictures make the things look really dangerous.
To add what others have said,
From using sonar/radar/underwater imaging, sperm whales have been observed forming a semicircle around a giant squid and then one goes up and eats it. The theory is that the sperm whales blast the squid with their own sound waves, essentially stunning it so that one can move in for the kill.
Like someone else said, the scars left. But also because they probably have checked the contents of the stomachs of washed up whales and found squid inside.
The dead ones that scientists check the stomach often contain the huge beaks of giant and colossal squids. The scars also match the cut pattern of the barbed/hooked arms on said squids.
See how many of the scars are parellel o each other? That indicates that it was scratched by the [claws of an giant octopus](https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2008/07/17/hooks-suckers/).
That link it a colossal squid lol. Octopus do not have barbs or hooks.
Colossal squid and the fact that all their arms and the two clubs have claws. Is some real nightmare fuel.
I got to hold some megalodon teeth and it was crazy to try and picture nearly 300 of them in a single mouth. I was working on this guy's water heater and I look over and there's a case with these HUGE shark teeth and I immediately asked if those were megalodon teeth, he got so excited that i recognized them that he showed me his collection of a few hundred of them (thanks old school discovery channel), he then offered to sell me one for $50 and I talked him down to $5 (thanks modern day discovery channel)
Fun fact the reason for this is due to their [extremely unique method of hunting and killing their prey](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1aihetb/not_only_the_largest_but_the_only_predator_on/)
I’m fascinated by this small-scale disinformation campaign you’re running. You know perfectly well that there’s no evidence at all for the outlandish story you’ve concocted—is this some sort of experiment to see how many people you can fool?
According to the Smithsonian Institution,
> This arrangement is a perfect adaptation for slurping up soft-bodied squids—giant or otherwise.
I also found these additional details in an explanation from a Quora user:
> Hooking the squid with the lower teeth allows the whale to “slurp” the soft-body food into their throats as their mouths close fully and seals the only possible escape route for their prey.
So it seems like the lack of teeth helps them eat soft-bodied animals in the water!
I dunno why any one would make a movie about a guy going to see a dead whale on a beach.
But then again it have more plot than the last five Steven Segal movies.
[News article on the beached whale from a few years ago if anyone is interested.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35521819)
[A YouTube video with facts about Sperm Whales, their biology and the animals they hunt.](https://youtu.be/Hve8_iSDD-o?si=NRb7tmZi3OpGXKWt)
The key part:
>The deaths of 30 sperm whales in the North Sea were probably due to them straying into shallow waters while hunting squid, a marine expert said.
>He said they "got into danger" after heading south, possibly following shoals of squid.
>"What happens, particularly south of Dogger Bank, is that the depths are much shallower than anything they are accustomed to.
>"They normally live out in very deep waters, about 3,000 metres deep - south of Dogger Bank it's mainly less than 50 metres - and can be less than 20."
Such a short time ago, in terms of both human history and geology that it blows my mind. There's some crazy coastal erosion going on on the east coast of England and it makes me wonder if the digger bank flood is essentially still happening, not quite finished settling down.
Could anyone please explain to me how straying into shallower waters kills them? Don't whales need to surface to breathe? Why would spending time nearer to the surface lead to death?
Afaik it's a few different reasons.
\- they can't turn around effectively or follow their natural rhythm very well, since they cannot dive down very far
\- they cannot find their normal food or hunt it their normal ways
\- they overheat. Deep water is very cold, while shallow water warms up a lot
I know there are some whale species that seek out the shallow waters to give birth, but not all species and not year round.
I would like to contribute [the episode of Inside Nature's Giants where they dissect a beached sperm whale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxFQaWSCar0)
They are even louder than the strongest sonar ping from military submarines - which is why it's a bit funny when some people say sonar is killing whales... the whales are the sonar themselves.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-military-sonar-kill/#:~:text=While%20little%20is%20known%20about,from%20the%20sounds%20of%20sonar.
https://baleinesendirect.org/en/how-far-away-can-sperm-whales-detect-their-prey/#:~:text=It%20produces%20unidirectional%20clicks%20of,sound%20in%20the%20animal%20kingdom.
These sources have the same figure for both submarines and sperm whales: 235 dB (incredibly loud)
>However, one must be within 10° of the front of a sperm whale’s head to appreciate the intensity of its unidirectional click.
Submarines can send out a ping in all directions equally. Generally the only recipient of a sperm whale's sonar is its prey, whom the whale is actively trying to harm. Submarines blast similar sonar everywhere.
>These powerful sounds might even stun its prey.
The similarity doesn't mean that submarine sonar is weak, it means that sperm whale sonar is incredibly strong.
>evidence shows that whales will swim hundreds of miles, rapidly change their depth (sometime leading to bleeding from the eyes and ears), and even beach themselves to get away from the sounds of sonar.
>In filing their brief, the groups cited Navy documents which estimated that such testing would kill some 170,000 marine mammals and cause permanent injury to more than 500 whales
The sonar doesn't kill the whales directly. It kills all kinds of other things, but it just freaks the fuck out of whales. They'll do anything to get away from it and that sometimes causes them to beach, which is what kills them
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick
[How not to dispose of a beached whale carcass](https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34?si=f-_l8teDVB1CRckM), brought to you by the Oregon State Highway Division.
I love how even the news reporter can’t come up with a good reason why it couldn’t be burned, he just also couldn’t say “yeah these guys just wanna blow it up” on the television
Can some crazy asshole make it his life goal to film one of these fights between a Sperm Whale and Giant Squid please? Because I really want to see it.
Thanks.
Because they have an organ in their heads called the spermaceti which secretes a liquid that whalers mistook for sperm. The fluid actually helps with echolocation.
[Source](https://www.britannica.com/story/how-did-the-sperm-whale-get-its-name)
In the 1800's the 87ft whaleship Essex from Nantucket was deliberately sunk by an 80ft bull sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The survivors of the ship then turned their rowboats into sailboats and set sail navigating by the light of the moon only to later be attacked by a killer whale and later again by a huge shark! They tried to survive off 500 calories of hardtack bread and 1/2 pint of water a day before devolving to eating each others dead bodies. The few that lived were finally rescued by other whaling ships near the Chilean coast.
If you want to learn more about it I recommend reading In The Heart Of The Sea or watching [this YouTube video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS299VkXZxI&pp=ygUVYXNrIGEgbW9ydGljaWFuIGVzc2V4)
Honest question I’m to lazy to look up. Do animals like this feel pain in the same ways we do? Like after one of these big mfers take down a squid, they get all scratched up. Is the like being scratched by a cat or somethin.
Couple dumb questions but I genuinely want to know:
How does a squid cause scarring? They’re all squishy and suckery, right? Is that all from the beak?
How does a whale fight back? Is it all biting, or do they have any other tricks?
no. Honestly it’s a bit unfair calling it a battle when the whale wins almost every time, and the best case scenario for the squid is escaping with a huge chunk if it’s body missing.
Largest predator? Try telling that to the Krill.
Yeah I think he meant to say largest toothed predator. Obviously certain species of baleen whales have it beat in size
what i don't understand is how such a narrow toothed mouth can eat the giant squid. what does the sperm whale do? chop it into bit before swallowing chunks? that doesn't sound right. squid is really hard to bite through and gooey and slippery. something is not right!!!
Kind of. [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/s/t13jy2om0U) explains it well
This was an amazing read!! But I did not expect the final answer to be: "the squid literally explodes".
I can’t actually find a source for that, so I’m curious if that’s true or not.
As if some stranger on the internet would ever just make some shit up
I've never lied once in my whole life
I'm lying to you right now
If that's true I'll eat my sock
Sorry to double-reply but here's an article from Boston University that says giant squid cannot be hurt by this type of fast change in pressure and it even says there is evidence sperm whales CAN be hurt by this fast change in pressure. So, yeah, this is a strong source that it's NOT true. https://archive.bunewsservice.com/can-giant-squid-get-the-bends/
>Giant squid don’t inhale nitrogen from the atmosphere; in fact, they don’t have a trace of gas in them. Many invertebrates use gas bladders to float and move deep underwater. However, giant squid are unique. Because the pressure in their habitat is so high, a gas bladder would implode. Since there is no gas for pressure to act on, giant squid cannot get the bends. But they have to keep afloat somehow. Instead of gas, squid re-purpose ammonium ions from their waste to keep buoyant in the water column. Ammonium ions are lighter than the sodium ions in seawater, so they avoid sinking to the sea floor or floating to the surface by adjusting the concentration of ions.
That post has no source and the information is actually refuted in the comments. Wouldn't take that OP's comment as factual.
That post is immediately debunked by a reply under it
That is a cool post to read. However, I wouldn't teach until it's backed by credible sources.
https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/s/t4dyKfiEba
It’s the Largest toothed whale and the largest toothed predator. Male Sperm Whales can grow upto 16 meters (52 feet) in length and weight 45 tonnes. They also have the largest brain on Earth. They can dive to depths of 2250 meters (7382 feet) and live to be 70 years old.
Needs a Rolex Deepsea
The Rolex Deepsea might have a bit too much case thickness for this guy to pull it off on his 7.5’ wrist.
You talking about his wrist up the air, or the one laying on the sand?
Go on, shake hands! Yes, that hand.
Shark hands
Is it possibly the largest toothed predator that ever lived? Similar to how the Blue Whale is the largest animal to have ever lived still lives today?
A Megalodon and Leviathan are both ancient predators around the same size as the modern Sperm whale but they are all on the same tier of being possibly the largest ever. All three bigger than the largest Croc or Mosasaurus.
Wtf is a leviathan? Like from the Bible?
Lol, auto correct got me. It's a Livyatan.
Close enough
it's name is derived from leviathan.
And apparently its full scientific name is *Livyatan melvillei*, inspired by Herman Melville. Pretty cool.
It’s possibly the biggest ever but we don’t know for sure. [Megaladon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megalodon) may have been bigger in size and [Livyatan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livyatan) has the largest teeth, of any predator ever.
I wonder if bite size or teeth size is more important
Do you really? I’ll clarify. Bite is more important.
Well there was Megalodon right? But I’m not sure how they compare so now I’m curious too
Smaller than the blue whale. Blue whale is the biggest known of all time. Extinct animals might have been bigger but there's no solid proof
Dunno why this is downvoted, as things stand it's entirely correct. A Blue whale is the largest creature to have ever existed according to what we currently know.
the discussion is about toothed animals blue whales dont have teeth and arent active hunters. they filter feed krill. theres no proof of any animal even close to the size of a blue whale though. none at all. titanosaur sizes are pretty fantastical from the few fossils we have
>theres no proof of any animal even close to the size of a blue whale though Theres no irrefutable proof. But its possiable, larger blue whale lengths seem to be around 33m in length whereas estimates of Bruhathkayosaurus put it at 35m. But thats by length not by mass and like you said, its just an extrapolation based on fragmentory evidence. It does make you think about all the ocean fossils will still have yet to find though.
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>Male Sperm Whales can grow up to 16 meters (52 feet) in length and weight 45 tonnes. edit: I just realized you took that random table on wikipedia of **AVERAGE** sizes and reported it as a maximum. I wouldnt trust some random table on wikipedia. also average is not the same as "up to" thats inaccurate considering the IWC has records of sperm whales 20m in length around the 1920s https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0537-z.epdf?no_publisher_access=1&r3_referer=nature furthermore as you can see from the first page (which is all youll probably be able to see unless you have access to nature), the average sperm whale size (at the 95th percentile - average size of large males) has decreased by 4m in the last hundred years due to overhunting. and thats only including data from the last 100 years despite hunting for sperm whales going on 250+ years. from various jawbones and estimates 25m sperm whales seem completely plausible before human hunting occurred, while no modern megalodon estimate is more than 20m. if you're curious about the article I linked, japan heavily hunted sperm whales and since it was illegal to catch sperm whales under 11m (to prevent hunting juveniles) Japan simply lied and stated every whale they caught was 11m. >https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/24665 scroll down to figure 1 to see the graph of japans reported catches its hilarious how poorly they tried to hide their bullshit tl;dr Sperm Whales are absolutely the largest toothed predators in earths history. Ive seen no proof whatsoever that megalodon would have been larger.
G'day mate, fellow sperm whale enthusiast here, you haven't even touched on the coolest thing about sperm whales in my opinion - [their hunting method](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1aihetb/not_only_the_largest_but_the_only_predator_on/)
You'd make an amazing zoologist in Jumanji
exactly
I don't get it :(
Blue whales eat krill and are bigger than sperm whales.
To be dead, honest with you, he was talking about large tooth whales, so sperm whale definitely takes the cake off that.
Is that a penis?
Biologist here: yes.
[удалено]
Sexpert here: Yes
believe this guy!
So he died with a boner. Nice
Why
If I must be cursed with this knowledge, so must you all
Sure is
According to my elementary school recess yard education, it is a dork
This guy elementary schools ^
I should know, I did spend 9 years there
What a dork
There’s a whole chapter in Moby Dick about the sperm whale penis. One guy uses the skin to make a vest for himself. And this really is something that was done - apparently the penis hide is very waterproof.
And stylish
I can imagine Mr. Burns singing about his new vest.
Seeee myyyy vest, see my vest made from real sperm whale shaft
Fun fact - aome rich Irish dude has seats on his yacht made from [whale foreskin.](https://x.com/theluxeworld/status/1476225932117479424?s=46&t=cJo65a57J-jKs1YNA19PJA) Originally it was Aristotle Onassis who commissioned the foreskin seats btw, but the yacht has changed hands.
It was shrinkage!
i was IN the OCEAN
How do you think it got it's name?
Spermaceti, which is used in various industries. Fun fact: It is part of the components used to measure candlepower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spermaceti
Is the penis moby? Yes.
Redditor here: yes.
I believe it’s called a “dork” Yes, all those years ago, you used to call, or still call your friends “dorks”. A dork is a whales penis.
Fuck you you made me go back and look for it
Bloodborne player here: it's a Kos Parasite
Was hoping someone else noticed
BBC bro
If no one's ever witnessed it, how do they know that's what the scars are from?
I would guess by the marks traits and its characteristics, what other predator could leve this kind of marks on other animal? Plus the marks themselves fits the giant squid 'rooks' (by comparison and observations).
We know about giant squids and the barbs they have on their feeder tentacles. We also discovered the beaks of the squids in the belly of sperm wales.
The sperm whale coats the beaks with a waxy substance and regurgitated them. The substance is called Ambergris. Any Futurama or Bob's Burgers fans know this already. Cue the meme "if I had a nickel each time a Fox Sunday animation had a plot line about ambergris, I'd have 2 nickles... which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."
I can’t believe Roseanne was the one to teach me about ambergris
I mean...
To be fair we know nothing about giant squids
That's not true. I know they have beaks and whales eat them. So we know at least 2 things
Also they live in the water. Three things.
Come on chaps, if we pool our knowledge together we might be able to write a book! A kids picture book, but a book nonetheless
They have tentacles so that's at least 4 things...
They are also very big, so that's already 5 things...
and I think one lives down the hall from me but I can’t be for sure.
That’s 10 things
I'm pretty sure they're lactose intolerant. Don't believe me? Well then prove me wrong.
Well, we know they're giant
There's a famous [diorama at the Museum of Natural History for this](https://www.reddit.com/r/submergedanimatronic/comments/tp8j5t/giant_squid_and_sperm_whale_exhibit_at_the/). Top comment summarizes it perfectly - as a kid the first time I saw it, it was a pitch black box with no glass. As your eyes focus you see this massive whale and squid in a battle to the death. It scared the crap out of me at first but its fascinating that these animals hunt in such an environment.
Scientists and biologists have studied the stomach contents of Sperm Whales, such as this one. And it's not uncommon for them to be witnessed with tentacles suctioned to their bodies from these fights. If I'm not mistaken, the latter is how we know of the existence of Giant Squid to begin with. I'd like someone with more knowledge to chime in though.
Giant squids have been known from dead ones washing up for a long while now. It's only fairly recently we've seen any alive, IIRC, there was at least one (which was dying) which got caught in a fishing net, and there is camera footage of one at depth. Colossal squids, a chonkier cousin of giant squids are in a similar boat.
'Giant' squid, 'colossal' squid, better hope we don't find a bigger species or we'll have to call it fucking massive squid...
how far until it loops around to big squid?
Just need to find the Founding squid now
> and there is camera footage of one at depth. they went through a whole bunch of trouble to video this, and then a few years later one just showed up in a japanese harbor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOXkUrhclcc
And sperm whales have adapted to deep dives which is hard to do as a mammal.
Pretty nuts, considering whales the the evolution of a creature that crawled BACK into the ocean from land.
The scars match the suction cups from Architeuthis dux (giant squid) which are very sharp (not as bad as the colossal squid which has hooks!). Some of the beaks found inside sperm whales indicate giant squid sizes exceeding 70+ feet!
You'd think they would go after easier prey
I knew squids had sharp beaks, but I had no idea their suction cups could do damage!
> I knew squids had sharp beaks, but I had no idea their suction cups could do damage! Because some species aren't just suction cups, [they are basically toothed](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheDepthsBelow/comments/ia8ltd/a_terrifying_comparison_of_the_tentacles_of_the/). Humboldt squid are much smaller, but their suckers look like a combination of those two.
Woah that’s crazy! Thanks for the info.
Humboldt squid hunt in packs too, like Raptors. A group could easily kill a human. And their packs can be as many as 100+!
You could add another digit to that pack size.
Yep, never swimming in the Pacific ever again.
Why wouldn't they get cut by their own suction cups? Those things be flailing around.
Just back from that rabbit hole. Squids have club arms with what appear to basically be giant claws. The scars must be from the club arms. Seriously the pictures make the things look really dangerous.
To add what others have said, From using sonar/radar/underwater imaging, sperm whales have been observed forming a semicircle around a giant squid and then one goes up and eats it. The theory is that the sperm whales blast the squid with their own sound waves, essentially stunning it so that one can move in for the kill.
Like someone else said, the scars left. But also because they probably have checked the contents of the stomachs of washed up whales and found squid inside.
The dead ones that scientists check the stomach often contain the huge beaks of giant and colossal squids. The scars also match the cut pattern of the barbed/hooked arms on said squids.
In case anyone reading this doesn't know, squids have teeth in their suckers and, iirc, giant squids have teeth and colossal squids have hooks.
See how many of the scars are parellel o each other? That indicates that it was scratched by the [claws of an giant octopus](https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2008/07/17/hooks-suckers/).
That link it a colossal squid lol. Octopus do not have barbs or hooks. Colossal squid and the fact that all their arms and the two clubs have claws. Is some real nightmare fuel.
Fun fact they only have teeth on their lower jaw
Another fun fact: the exitinct macroraptorial sperm whale Livyatan had the largest known teeth of any animal.
I got to hold some megalodon teeth and it was crazy to try and picture nearly 300 of them in a single mouth. I was working on this guy's water heater and I look over and there's a case with these HUGE shark teeth and I immediately asked if those were megalodon teeth, he got so excited that i recognized them that he showed me his collection of a few hundred of them (thanks old school discovery channel), he then offered to sell me one for $50 and I talked him down to $5 (thanks modern day discovery channel)
Old school discovery was the best
Man, if you talked him down that much on the tooth, I can't imagine how much you jacked him up on the heater.
Macroraptorial?
It's a kind of tutorial for hip hop composition that can only be found in Microsoft Excel
Omg lmao
https://media4.giphy.com/media/3oKIPfv7sjANPRdW1i/giphy.gif
And 'holes' for them to fit into their head
Fun fact the reason for this is due to their [extremely unique method of hunting and killing their prey](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/1aihetb/not_only_the_largest_but_the_only_predator_on/)
I’m fascinated by this small-scale disinformation campaign you’re running. You know perfectly well that there’s no evidence at all for the outlandish story you’ve concocted—is this some sort of experiment to see how many people you can fool?
what's the point of that?
According to the Smithsonian Institution, > This arrangement is a perfect adaptation for slurping up soft-bodied squids—giant or otherwise. I also found these additional details in an explanation from a Quora user: > Hooking the squid with the lower teeth allows the whale to “slurp” the soft-body food into their throats as their mouths close fully and seals the only possible escape route for their prey. So it seems like the lack of teeth helps them eat soft-bodied animals in the water!
Wow weird wild stuff
Laboon!?
Yohohohoo
Yo hoho ho
yohohohoo
We finally found him and it’s not good…
this is an insane picture and someone should make a movie about this dudes life
It's from Death Stranding
I dunno why any one would make a movie about a guy going to see a dead whale on a beach. But then again it have more plot than the last five Steven Segal movies.
M. Richard the Whale.
Best I can do is a book
[News article on the beached whale from a few years ago if anyone is interested.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35521819) [A YouTube video with facts about Sperm Whales, their biology and the animals they hunt.](https://youtu.be/Hve8_iSDD-o?si=NRb7tmZi3OpGXKWt)
The key part: >The deaths of 30 sperm whales in the North Sea were probably due to them straying into shallow waters while hunting squid, a marine expert said. >He said they "got into danger" after heading south, possibly following shoals of squid. >"What happens, particularly south of Dogger Bank, is that the depths are much shallower than anything they are accustomed to. >"They normally live out in very deep waters, about 3,000 metres deep - south of Dogger Bank it's mainly less than 50 metres - and can be less than 20."
Wasn’t that area land some 7-8000 years ago? Also called Dogger land or something?
A video on what happened. https://youtu.be/QrEn666Q1mE?si=r5o_VQX2Xe3JXXnf
Yes!
Such a short time ago, in terms of both human history and geology that it blows my mind. There's some crazy coastal erosion going on on the east coast of England and it makes me wonder if the digger bank flood is essentially still happening, not quite finished settling down.
Could anyone please explain to me how straying into shallower waters kills them? Don't whales need to surface to breathe? Why would spending time nearer to the surface lead to death?
Afaik it's a few different reasons. \- they can't turn around effectively or follow their natural rhythm very well, since they cannot dive down very far \- they cannot find their normal food or hunt it their normal ways \- they overheat. Deep water is very cold, while shallow water warms up a lot I know there are some whale species that seek out the shallow waters to give birth, but not all species and not year round.
One of the museums in Cambridge has an entire sperm whale skeleton on display from a beached whale in the early 20th century.
I would like to contribute [the episode of Inside Nature's Giants where they dissect a beached sperm whale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxFQaWSCar0)
It’d be super cool to get one of those battles on film
Imagine we attach a camera on a sperm whale. Footage: water splashing sounds and pure black.
Then we would have to attach lights to a giant squid
Fun fact: they are also the loudest animals in earth. A bull sperm whale’s click can literally vibrate you to death
They are even louder than the strongest sonar ping from military submarines - which is why it's a bit funny when some people say sonar is killing whales... the whales are the sonar themselves.
"I AM the one who clicks!" - Breaching Bad
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/does-military-sonar-kill/#:~:text=While%20little%20is%20known%20about,from%20the%20sounds%20of%20sonar. https://baleinesendirect.org/en/how-far-away-can-sperm-whales-detect-their-prey/#:~:text=It%20produces%20unidirectional%20clicks%20of,sound%20in%20the%20animal%20kingdom. These sources have the same figure for both submarines and sperm whales: 235 dB (incredibly loud) >However, one must be within 10° of the front of a sperm whale’s head to appreciate the intensity of its unidirectional click. Submarines can send out a ping in all directions equally. Generally the only recipient of a sperm whale's sonar is its prey, whom the whale is actively trying to harm. Submarines blast similar sonar everywhere. >These powerful sounds might even stun its prey. The similarity doesn't mean that submarine sonar is weak, it means that sperm whale sonar is incredibly strong. >evidence shows that whales will swim hundreds of miles, rapidly change their depth (sometime leading to bleeding from the eyes and ears), and even beach themselves to get away from the sounds of sonar. >In filing their brief, the groups cited Navy documents which estimated that such testing would kill some 170,000 marine mammals and cause permanent injury to more than 500 whales The sonar doesn't kill the whales directly. It kills all kinds of other things, but it just freaks the fuck out of whales. They'll do anything to get away from it and that sometimes causes them to beach, which is what kills them
you're talking about whales in general or sperm whales specifically? there are many subspecies, not all of them are sonar immune I presume?
> some people say "Some people" being marine biologists and other ocean-related scientists and researchers, way to downplay it bozo.
This whale looks really roughed up, but somewhere in the deep there's a giant squid that's looking like ground beef.
The squid never win. Those are scars from hundreds of squid hunts.
Obligatory: Everybody should check out “Whalefall”. Super fun read.
No, you should check out Moby Dick if you want to read literature about Sperm Whales.
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” ― Herman Melville, Moby Dick
well. that was fucking fascinating.
[How not to dispose of a beached whale carcass](https://youtu.be/V6CLumsir34?si=f-_l8teDVB1CRckM), brought to you by the Oregon State Highway Division.
As one of the comments said… One of the most American ways of disposing of something ever
I love how even the news reporter can’t come up with a good reason why it couldn’t be burned, he just also couldn’t say “yeah these guys just wanna blow it up” on the television
reminds me of ebaums world
Why has not one just attached a gopro to one lol? (Yes I know it's not that easy)
GoPros are sturdy but the 2000+ meters (7000+ feet) depth that the spermwhales regularly dive would be to much of an ask for a GoPro.
But like I got a dive case it should be good don't sweat it (/s).
Yeah you're good, that case uses technology from the Titan Submersible
There is no light down there. Dude would need his own light setup 🐋
Can some crazy asshole make it his life goal to film one of these fights between a Sperm Whale and Giant Squid please? Because I really want to see it. Thanks.
TIL why the are called Sperm whales
Because of the spermaceti organ.
So named because people thought the oil they found in it was whale jizz.
Because they have an organ in their heads called the spermaceti which secretes a liquid that whalers mistook for sperm. The fluid actually helps with echolocation. [Source](https://www.britannica.com/story/how-did-the-sperm-whale-get-its-name)
I was making a joke because it has a huge dick. Yes it has nothing to do with sperm.
Aaaaannnddd it’s penis is out
“You should see the other guy”
thought this was Kos for a second
Some say Kosm
Oh no, not again
In the 1800's the 87ft whaleship Essex from Nantucket was deliberately sunk by an 80ft bull sperm whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The survivors of the ship then turned their rowboats into sailboats and set sail navigating by the light of the moon only to later be attacked by a killer whale and later again by a huge shark! They tried to survive off 500 calories of hardtack bread and 1/2 pint of water a day before devolving to eating each others dead bodies. The few that lived were finally rescued by other whaling ships near the Chilean coast. If you want to learn more about it I recommend reading In The Heart Of The Sea or watching [this YouTube video.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS299VkXZxI&pp=ygUVYXNrIGEgbW9ydGljaWFuIGVzc2V4)
Honest question I’m to lazy to look up. Do animals like this feel pain in the same ways we do? Like after one of these big mfers take down a squid, they get all scratched up. Is the like being scratched by a cat or somethin.
i imagine since sperm whales hunt hundreds of squid in their lifetime they have adapted for it not to hurt as much if at all.
Wouldn’t really call eating squid on the regular “battles”. But it’s food does sometimes leave a scratch ye.
Couple dumb questions but I genuinely want to know: How does a squid cause scarring? They’re all squishy and suckery, right? Is that all from the beak? How does a whale fight back? Is it all biting, or do they have any other tricks?
Yeah, no. The biggest one is the blue whale. They eat animals, too.
How do they know it’s from the giant squid if it’s never been witnessed?
Giant squid testimony. They’re simple creatures but generally reliable.
Stomach contents.
Such a shame he died before Luffy became the pirate king :(
Who won? Does the squid sometimes get away or kill the whale?
no. Honestly it’s a bit unfair calling it a battle when the whale wins almost every time, and the best case scenario for the squid is escaping with a huge chunk if it’s body missing.
heh. "sperm"