Has Anyone Ever heard of Squid Beachings?

www.nbcbayarea.com...



I don't know about anyone else but coould this have been something other than an earthquake? Maybe a magnetic pulse? An under sea explosion? I'm a Calif native and I've never heard of squid acting like this. ATS'rs: any ideas?



MOD EDIT: spelling of "squid" in title

[edit on 18-7-2009 by DontTreadOnMe]

I just thought of this as I read your post, but....What if there was an earthquake, and when the fault shifted, it released some methane gas(or some other kind of gas) and the squids, happened to breath them, and it made them "high"(sorry, I have been working all night, and can't for the life of me can't think of a different word other than that.) Just a thought.

A squid's balance organ is the statocyst; somewhat similar to our ear's balance organ, it uses hairs and fluids to detect changes in inertia. I imagine distortions would work roughly the same way; we can get ourselves dizzy when we spin around too much or erratically, maybe the squid got tossed around during the earthquake. Where we have an extensive brain to tell us not to listen to our nauseous balance organ and just sit down for a second, squids supposedly blindly follow their organ as they have no parts in their brain to 'reroute' these activities. As long as the statocyst has not returned to it's normal functioning status, the squid would be an unguided projectile. In addition, squids seem to have two different measurements of angular acceleration, for slow and fast accelerations.
The problem with these organs is that they cannot discern between internal and external causes - did the world spin or did I? - and this failure to discern is mirrored in the processing of these signals. For example, when a cat sleeps on a chair and you slowly start to rotate it, keep it up for a minute and then suddenly stop, the cat will jump up thinking it suddenly started to move*. This works just as well with humans; even with our eyes open, we feel a jolt that tells us to react in a certain way. Now imagine the squid getting tossed around by displacing earth/water, rapidly accelerating and turning around by the different currents created by the shift of matter; sensitive for both low and high angular accelerations, and not being able to relate it's accelerations to environmental changes; the squid's statocyst may have led it to swim right up to the beach.
A few minutes is quite long for our balance organ to regain normal functionality, I'm not sure how that translates to statocysts..

Whether it was an earthquake or something else, there had to be a lot of turmoil in the squid's home.. poor cephaloddy.


* No cats were harmed during the writing of this post.

Very interesting information about the squid's biology and thanks for posting. And very relieved to hear cats are safe whilst posting!

You explained how the squid would react to an undersea earthquake, but I still think this is highly unusual. My husband thought along the lines as the previous post, maybe there was a release of sulpher or methane?
Anyway, thanks again!

interesting. my first thought was that it was injured somehow. and the earthquake is just a coincidence.

I think it's more likely that it got hit hard by something ( whale, boat, submarine) that created blunt force trauma and damage to the internal organs responsible for the squids direction or equalibrium. The squid is squishy. it would be hard to tell from the outside, not sure if they bruise and there's nothing to break. but the internal organs could be totally wrecked.

i have had two holidays in totally sperate locations where everytime i go snorkelling (at least twice a day when on holiday) i have come across the same schoal of squid at some stage in my swim... and i know they're there before i see them. at first it was a little disconcerting that i'd be floating around in a different part of the bay and they'd be there again... but after the thrid day it was great to have the company and i found myself talking to the things (freak)

Tobago was the first holiday, then 4 years later in St Lucia i had the same thing.... it was well freaky to see a bunch of squid the first day in St Lucia (clearly a differenct bunch to tobago)... but they would be knocking around every day. naturally since tobago i can never eat calamari; i get the feeling they're the brains of the ocean, probably due to the size of their eyes which seem to have character.

reply to post by BASSPLYR


If you read the article there were dozens of squid on the beach, so a boat hitting one wouldn't be a factor. The beachings seemed related to the earthquake....or seismic event rather.

reply to post by dickbar


What a cool story! Yep, I think the octopus and squid are highly intelligent.
I was a bit disconcerted by the photos showing the squid's eye....reminded
me of the way Egyptians drew human eyes.

I'm up here in north San Diego county, Oceanside to be precise, and some years we get massive humboldt squid beachings. Usually that's due to the fact that they're usually pushed ashore by bigger predators and because sometimes they tend to follow their prey too close to the shallow beaches, essentially beaching themselves. It's quite possible that the earthquake simply scared them into beaching themselves at La Jolla. It's kind of hard to say though, seeing as how we know so little about these creature's behavior except that they've very aggressive animals when threatened.

Oh yes they are intelligent.
In a aquarium here there was a tank full of fish that slowly decreased. No matter how much fish they added to it. And it confounded the keeper.
So they stayed overnight, and an octopus, this massive one, manages to squeeze itself through a filter, probably about as big diameter as a bicep, crawl across the floor, down the hall, into the new tank and eat all the fish.

I imagine the magnetic distortion has an adverse affect on them (science talk). Same thing when cats/dogs go crazy before an earthquake, or the rumour "old men feel a storm brewing" from the fishermen.

Originally posted by missvicky
www.nbcbayarea.com...



I don't know about anyone else but coould this have been something other than an earthquake? Maybe a magnetic pulse? An under sea explosion? I'm a Calif native and I've never heard of squid acting like this. ATS'rs: any ideas?

Leviathan related?????????????They were scared from the deep

[edit on 7/17/09 by Ophiuchus 13]

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Here's a new article on Humbolt Squid. They do seem pretty aggressive.
Thanks to daedalus21 about the beachings, this one must've made the news because of the earthquake.

ah crap you are right. there were multiple squid.

Well remember back a few years ago the navy was testing that super sonar that was killing whole pods of whales due to the power of the sonar pulse.

San diego is a major naval hot spot. No doubt there are craft in the area mounted with the same equipment and are capable of this. heck maybe even the earthquake was caused by some sort of new sonar type device. maybe one that like a mine sits on the bottom of the ocean near major ports of entry one would want to survail and protect. it could be connected to some sort of anti intruder super sonar testing near miramar and coranado.

the squid were in the area. sonar pulse testing goes on. the only ships really able to detect another underwater sonar pulse would probably be military, so the public wouldn't know this testing is going on. The squid get blasted, out goes their organs responsible for direction finding and they all go right into the beach in droves.

just my crazy theory

That's what made me think an explosion that could've registered as a seismic event. But then Daedalus24 said that squid beachings really aren't that uncommon. Who knows....at least Santa Barbara made it illegal for sonar in the channel. Very glad of that after being rammed by a whale a few years ago.

reply to post by Ridhya

Octopus are not squid and squid are not octopus.
Other than both being Cephalopods they are not very closely related.


[edit on 7/18/2009 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


I'm pretty sure we're all aware of that. It's just a casual conversation. Not much to go on except that it's an odd occurance.

Ha yeah I was replying to miss vicky

Originally posted by missvicky
What a cool story! Yep, I think the octopus and squid are highly intelligent.

reply to post by Ridhya


Another thing they have in common is that they are tasty.

reply to post by Phage


And they are just flat out strange. Talk about alien life forms! Speaking of tasty, though, did you know "they" make pasta with the ink? It's black pasta. Discovered it while I was searching for a possible new line of merch to add to the gift shop I owned a few years ago.

reply to post by missvicky

Alien indeed. Another cephalopod, this one goes psychedelic.