this is a Caribbean reef squid floating
or drifting just below the surface off
the coast of Venezuela and these are
animals that begin their life as a tiny
little egg as we see in this photograph
now looking like a some sort of a
science fiction monster here but squid
actually no matter what species they
only live about a year maybe 18 months
they have a very short life I’ve often
referred to them as the James Dean of
the sea they they live fast and die
young but they do a lot in that amount
of time and one of the most remarkable
things about squid is their skin not
only can they change color like some
animals can but they can actually form
patterns body patterns which is a form
of communication amazing each pattern
that they form is a type of language if
you will that they can communicate to
their other brethren and here we see a
Caribbean reef squid demonstrating
something called the lateral silver
display he’s paired with a female which
we can’t see in this photograph but he’s
keeping his dark or pretty side I guess
to the to the female that he’s with and
he’s turning the other half of his body
white to repel other males that might be
thinking about stealing his girlfriend I
guess and similar behavior that I
photographed off the Channel Islands in
California number years ago this
happened a few nights before Christmas
in December at night I had been waiting
for two years to photograph this event
and then I got a call from a filmmaker
friend of mine saying it was happening
so I went out there and what I was
trying to photograph was this mass
aggregation that’s known as the Big Bang
of the squid getting together to mate in
huge numbers at about a hundred and
twenty feet off the Channel Islands and
they they gather in these groups of
hundreds and the male will embrace the
female he’ll wrap her up with his arms
and then the arms blush red as you see
the one in the foreground doing here
it’s again sort of a warning and scram
this is my girl and and then the females
after will go down and lay an egg on the
bottom and this huge mop that just sort
of sways in the and the current pretty
amazing and probably the scariest animal
that I’ve ever encountered in the ocean
was this guy here something called the
Humboldt squid acidic hiss gigas an
animal that is known to grow to lengths
of 13 feet that travel
in schools of thousands has teeth lining
its entire arms all the eight arms and
two tentacles about 24,000 teeth in
total and its mouth is actually like a
parrot like a macaw that could take a
quarter sized chunk of meat out of their
prey these are animals that when I read
the literature before I went out the
photograph and it said they will eat
anything that moves so that was always
comforting of course but I have this is
one expelling a cloud of ink sort of a
defensive behavior as I sort of came out
on with my camera I didn’t actually have
any real problems but they are pretty
scary
or drifting just below the surface off
the coast of Venezuela and these are
animals that begin their life as a tiny
little egg as we see in this photograph
now looking like a some sort of a
science fiction monster here but squid
actually no matter what species they
only live about a year maybe 18 months
they have a very short life I’ve often
referred to them as the James Dean of
the sea they they live fast and die
young but they do a lot in that amount
of time and one of the most remarkable
things about squid is their skin not
only can they change color like some
animals can but they can actually form
patterns body patterns which is a form
of communication amazing each pattern
that they form is a type of language if
you will that they can communicate to
their other brethren and here we see a
Caribbean reef squid demonstrating
something called the lateral silver
display he’s paired with a female which
we can’t see in this photograph but he’s
keeping his dark or pretty side I guess
to the to the female that he’s with and
he’s turning the other half of his body
white to repel other males that might be
thinking about stealing his girlfriend I
guess and similar behavior that I
photographed off the Channel Islands in
California number years ago this
happened a few nights before Christmas
in December at night I had been waiting
for two years to photograph this event
and then I got a call from a filmmaker
friend of mine saying it was happening
so I went out there and what I was
trying to photograph was this mass
aggregation that’s known as the Big Bang
of the squid getting together to mate in
huge numbers at about a hundred and
twenty feet off the Channel Islands and
they they gather in these groups of
hundreds and the male will embrace the
female he’ll wrap her up with his arms
and then the arms blush red as you see
the one in the foreground doing here
it’s again sort of a warning and scram
this is my girl and and then the females
after will go down and lay an egg on the
bottom and this huge mop that just sort
of sways in the and the current pretty
amazing and probably the scariest animal
that I’ve ever encountered in the ocean
was this guy here something called the
Humboldt squid acidic hiss gigas an
animal that is known to grow to lengths
of 13 feet that travel
in schools of thousands has teeth lining
its entire arms all the eight arms and
two tentacles about 24,000 teeth in
total and its mouth is actually like a
parrot like a macaw that could take a
quarter sized chunk of meat out of their
prey these are animals that when I read
the literature before I went out the
photograph and it said they will eat
anything that moves so that was always
comforting of course but I have this is
one expelling a cloud of ink sort of a
defensive behavior as I sort of came out
on with my camera I didn’t actually have
any real problems but they are pretty
scary
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