Giant Squid Seen Live, Filmed

[Dinwar]

By extension, quite a few squid species use the same system.

Hm. Fairly weak evidence, in my opinion--given the number of character reversals in any cladogram I'm not convinced that evolutionary change is particularly difficult, but I'll certainly admit that that's just me. And I know too many taxa that are unique in their clade to not question that sort of argument. But yeah, in conjunction with the abnormally high levels of ammonia found in dead squid it makes sense. I just wish there was something strong. Story of most sciences, isn't it? "Makes sense for now, but I wish I had more to work with."

 

[Miss_Kitt]

Well, we do have samples from quite a few pieces of dead squid and some mostly-intact animals. Those that were sampled had high ammonia content, and the microscopic structure matches that of other high-ammonia squid. So it seems a pretty firm bet.

This issue came up when the 'colossal squid' dissection was being done in New Zealand a few years ago... The researches were joiking about sushi, then said more seriously that they flesh would be quite inedible.

I was part of the multi-national, multi-timezone audience for that dissection. Just amazing what we can do now! The scientists were kind enough to not only have webcams pointed at the thawing tank, but also would sometimes actually look into the comments and take questions from interested virtual onlookers!

It's all good, MK

 

[Dinwar]

Well, we do have samples from quite a few pieces of dead squid and some mostly-intact animals. Those that were sampled had high ammonia content, and the microscopic structure matches that of other high-ammonia squid. So it seems a pretty firm bet.

Like I said before, ammonia isn't an uncommon byproduct of decomposition. It doesn't have to get to the point of degrading the carcass, either--it can look exactly like the critter and still be decomposing.

My point is, neither bit of data is conclusive on its own. Combined, though, they make a fairly good argument.