FOXSYLVANIA

—Extremely large invertebrates seldom seem to get big press, but the giant squid and giant octopus are both out there, and the latter was recently featured on a MonsterQuest episode.  Mythological and undocumented reports exist of such creatures, with giant squids and octopuses hopelessly intermingled and jointly referred to as kraken. Such giant creatures are in some legends regarded as forms taken by shape shifting vengeful sea gods.

In 1896 remains of an extremely large specimen were washed up off St. Augustine, Florida (see picture).  It didn’t have much of a head left and only the stumps of tentacles, but the science of the day estimated that the arm span of the creature may have reached 100 feet.  The largest octopus documented is the North Pacific giant octopus, with a 14 foot arm span.  Off the Bahamas Islands, however, is reputed to exist an octopus variant called the lusca, with a 75 to 200 foot span.

The octopus is a rather intelligent invertebrate, and can figure out how to open jars to get food within them.  Having a boneless body makes the octopus able to squeeze through remarkably small openings to hide or prey.  The fact that the body of an invertebrate such as the squid or octopus decays rapidly and can stretch after death makes post-mortem estimates of their size extremely difficult.