The deep-sea giant with eyes the size of dinner plates
This deep-sea giant has eyes the size of dinner plates — the largest of any animal alive.
Which one is REALLY true about the Giant Squid?
The short version
The giant squid can grow over 40 feet long and has the largest eyes of any animal — about the size of a human head — to spot the faint glow of hunting sperm whales. It grabs prey with two long toothed-sucker tentacles and a sharp beak, and inspired the kraken legend.
The Giant Squid is about 11× as long as a 7-year-old! 🤯
Why it's so weird
- ✓The Giant Squid has the largest eyes of any animal alive, roughly the size of a human head.
- ✓The Giant Squid can grow over 40 feet long.
- ✓The Giant Squid uses its dinner-plate eyes to spot the faint glow of hunting sperm whales in the blackness.
- ✓The Giant Squid grabs with two long feeding tentacles lined with toothed, gripping suckers.
- ✓The Giant Squid tears its catch apart with a sharp, parrot-like beak.
The full story
Deep in the dark ocean lives a giant with eyes the size of dinner plates. Meet the giant squid, a creature so elusive that it was never even filmed alive until the year two thousand twelve. It can grow over forty feet long, and its eyes are the largest of any animal on the entire planet, roughly the size of a human head. Those enormous eyes help it spot the faint glow of its main predator, the sperm whale, hunting in the blackness far below the surface. It catches prey with two long feeding tentacles lined with toothed, gripping suckers, then tears it apart with a sharp parrot-like beak. For centuries, sailors who glimpsed its huge tentacles told terrified tales of a sea monster they called the kraken. A real giant, hiding in the deep. Follow for more weird animal facts.
In the deep sea it is almost pitch black, so bigger eyes help by catching more of the tiny bit of light that's there — just like a wider bucket catches more rain. The giant squid's dinner-plate eyes gather so much light that they can spot a very faint glow: when a hungry sperm whale swims by, it bumps tiny ocean creatures that flash with light (this living glow is called bioluminescence), making a glowing trail. Scientists think eyes this huge let the squid see that trail far away and flee. Some scientists do debate it, though — the giant eyes may partly just come from having a giant body.
📚 Source: National Geographic: Giant Squid's Basketball-Size Eyes Have Sperm Whale Vision ↗No one has ever filmed a giant squid eating in the wild, so scientists learn how it feeds by cutting open the stomachs of dead squid that wash up on beaches and by studying the round sucker scars giant squid leave on the skin of sperm whales after deep-sea battles.
📚 Source: Smithsonian Ocean Portal: How Big is the Giant Squid? ↗Check what you learned
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“The Giant Squid has the largest eyes of any animal alive, roughly the size of a human head.”
“The Giant Squid has see-through skin, so you can watch its heart beat through its body.”
“The Giant Squid can grow over 40 feet long.”
Watch the 45-second version
Giant Squid gallery
