squid eats shark

Halo299 · Post by **Halo299** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 5:48 am

i found this video on the internet which claimed to be a real story.

anyway.

a zoo is looking to make room, or work on a tank, or something. so they put these squids in the same tank as some sharks. Thinking that the squids camaflage (sp) will be able to help the squids hide from the larger and deadly sharks.

now these arn't giant animals so don't picture The great White VS a Kraken, but all animals involved are a couple of feet in length so i would think twice about jumping in the pool with them.

When the zoo people show up one morning they find a dead shark. Then a few days later they find another on.

So they set up a camera to monitor the tank at night and see what is killing their sharks.

and wouldn't you know it, they squids where attacking the sharks, killing, and eating them. They said they had never hear of these animals feeding on each other like that so it came as kind of a shock beacues they thought the food chain went the other way.

the video was pretty cool to, if i can find it again i'll post a link.

Major Maxillary · Post by **Major Maxillary** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:12 am

yeah, we heard, only it was an octopus.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 7:52 am

The video on PBS was an octopus, however, a large enough species of squid *could* do it.

The only flaw with your retelling Halo, is that no zoo in the world has a live squid exhibit.

Error of Logic · Post by **Error of Logic** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:05 am

Why not? Are they that difficult to keep or are they protected?

Halo299 · Post by **Halo299** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:17 am

squidflakes wrote:The video on PBS was an octopus, however, a large enough species of squid *could* do it.

The only flaw with your retelling Halo, is that no zoo in the world has a live squid exhibit.

i never said it was accurate, i said i heard about it on the internet.

So it was very possibly an accurate retelling of wrong information.

I'd like to know why a zoo wouldn't have squids too.

dose it have something to do with the female animal handlers getting handled, Tentacle sytle!!!

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:36 am

Saddly, keeping squid is about as far from tentacle porn as you can get.

The biggest reasons zoos and aquaria don't keep squid are cost, and attraction value.

Squid need a LOT of room to run. The smaller species have a range of 1 to 3 miles in the ocean, and that's a hunting and territory range. Larger squid have a much larger range. There have been some species of squid tagged in the Pacific ocean that have been found in the Atlantic.

So, you are automatically stuck with small squid. Even then, the tank you keep them in needs to be very large, but you can get away with it not being very deep. I've managed to keep Gulf Squid when I was still at the NRCC, but the tank I used was 45,000 gallons, and easily had the area of an in-ground swimming pool. Building something of that size geared toward public viewing is VERY costly.

Small squid have a very short life span. Some species can live up to a year, but 8-9 months is the average. Squid are not easy to capture alive, so you're either going to be breeding your own squid (never done in captivity) or killing a large number of them for a small number of live specimins. Add to this, the EXTREME cost of live capture vs. harvest.

Finally, small squid are very boring during the day. They mostly just hover around. Only while hunting (night) or while mating (two to three weeks out of their entire lives) are they interesting to anyone other than a die hard squid-o-phile.

For these reasons and many many more, aquaria and zoos just don't keep squid. The Downtown Aquarium here in Houston had a squid exhibit for 3 days before it got pulled. They had a small squadron of Gulf Squid, and when the owner of the aquarium took the tour before it opened to the public, he descided that the squid were too boring to keep. Saddly, all of the squid were dead within 20 hours, so they replaced them with some fish or another.

Halo299 · Post by **Halo299** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:41 am

poor little squids.

thanks for the good info though

halo

Error of Logic · Post by **Error of Logic** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:36 pm

Wow ... I've actually been to a place that had a pool where you could hand-feed small sharks and rays. I chickened out when a ray came to my hand, of course ... But still. Who would've thought sharks would be easier to keep than squid?

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 1:45 pm

Sharks are a cinch. Rays are even easier.

MaryxTyphus · Post by **MaryxTyphus** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 2:18 pm

Squiddy's right on this. I actually saw that one and it was an Octopus.

Here's the link too if anyone wants to see it.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/octopus/ ... rk_hi.html

Sadly it's Real player but hey, it's all for tentacles eh?

Tellner · Post by **Tellner** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 6:17 pm

One of the most heartbreakingly beautiful things sights I've ever seen happened while we were in Hawaii visiting Tiel's parents. We were diving and saw a huge ray just flying along (I can't think of a better word for it) not 20 feet away from us.

Error of Logic · Post by **Error of Logic** » Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:10 pm

Yes ... Funny to think that it's a close relative of the oh-so-feared shark that can give you the illusion of underwater flight, isn't it? ^^

LindaH · Post by **LindaH** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 12:02 am

*cries for the poor dead squiddies*

Jackalope · Post by **Jackalope** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 5:10 am

So why not do a squid exhibit that's got day/night cycle flipped? They certainly do that for some of the tanks at Monterey Bay Aquarium. But then again, they also have a number of really big tanks already, along with the small ones. I would guess most aquariums don't have those sorts of installations...the Kelp Forest exhibit is three stories high and has a wave machine on the roof to keep the water in motion. And it's not the biggest tank there. They haven't finished rebuilding their cephalopod wing yet, so we'll see what they come up with.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:52 am

Of all the aquaria that might be able to keep a good squid exhibit going, MBA is probably the A#1 public aquarium that would be able to pull it off.

Again though, you run in to entertainment value. Squid just don't like to be seen.

Swordsman3003 · Post by **Swordsman3003** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:59 am

The most impressive animal I have ever seen in captivity was a manta-ray. I was at the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas.

Let me tell you, pictures cannot compare to that thing.

And even though it just filters the water (i'm pretty sure) for food, that manta scared the hell out of me. It was just so huge, and I was right up next to it!

MaryxTyphus · Post by **MaryxTyphus** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:11 pm

swordsman3003 wrote:The most impressive animal I have ever seen in captivity was a manta-ray. I was at the Atlantis Hotel in the Bahamas.

Let me tell you, pictures cannot compare to that thing.

And even though it just filters the water (i'm pretty sure) for food, that manta scared the hell out of me. It was just so huge, and I was right up next to it!

I used to be scared of those sucker fish, the small ones were't scary but man, I walked into a petshop once and found one as long as my arm. I don't know WHY I was so scared of them but I was

I was silly back then. I wasn't scared of Aquariums though, I loved watching the rays and mostly the sharks. I like sharks

RavenxDrake · Post by **RavenxDrake** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 6:18 pm

I could swear we have some small squid in the NC Zoo in Asheborro... or maybe one of our aquariums. Not, like, large ones, but some of the tiny two or three inch varieties....

Adam Selene · Post by **Adam Selene** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:40 pm

I have some of those in a bucket...i then mixed that bucket with a bucket of angry shrimp, it was fun...

(fishing)

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:07 pm

RavenxDrake wrote:I could swear we have some small squid in the NC Zoo in Asheborro... or maybe one of our aquariums. Not, like, large ones, but some of the tiny two or three inch varieties....

If you do, you NEED to let me know. I'm keeping track you see...