“It had clearly been attacked by something, because there was a bite mark in the head and several of the tentacles were missing,” Cyrus Widhalm, who caught the squid and is owner ofKona Sea Adventures, told local news station KHON2.
Widhalm was sailing his charter boat on Oct 1st south of Kailua-Kona, when one of the charter guests spotted the rare animal floating on the surface of the water. The squid had bite marks on it’s head from an attack, as well as missing tentacles.
“I think the most astounding thing were the eyes and beak,” Widhalm said. “The eyes were about the size of tennis balls, and the beak was the size of a large dog’s mouth. It looked like it could easily bite off a hand.”
After speaking to a local biologist who requested they bring it back to shore for study, Widhalm attempted to get the animal onto the boat, which however, proved difficult.
“It was very slippery to hold and quite unwieldy due to the size,” Widhalm said. “It was 7 feet long but when we weighed it, the entire animal was able to fit into a 5-gallon bucket.”
The slippery squid weighed in at a cool 52 pounds – thats alot of calamari.The squid is being sent to the National Marine Mammal Lab of the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, in Seattle, Washington, for further examination.
