Yet Another Great Read

I’ve finished the Whaling book and am now reading about the Giant Squid – a logical transition, since most of what we know about the Giant Squid comes from our whaling experiences.

The Search for the Giant Squid: the Biology and Mythology of the World’s most Elusive Sea Creature
By Richard Ellis

“Deep-water animals, whether fishes or cephalopods, usually have larger eyes than their shallow-water counterparts. Since Architeuthis has the largest eyes of any animal on earth, it follows that it must use these eyes to see where there is limited light. It does not follow, however, that the eyes are large simply because the squid is large. The sperm whale, which can reach approximately the sam length as the giant squid and, at least on some occasions, frequents the same depths, has an eye about 2½ inches in diameter, not much larger than the eye of a cow. The eyes of a giant squid can be as much as 15 inches in diameter, larger than an automobile hubcap. The eye of a blue whale, the largest animal in history, gets to be about 7 inches across.”