A chance discovery by a fisher off South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula has given budding marine biologists a bird’s eye view of the profession. Adelaide’s Flingers University has hosted a public dissection of a rare 140kg octopus squid, which had scientists animated and young observers squeamish.
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00:00A rare find which had South Australia's marine biologists giddy.
00:06I was not only really excited but I thought, oh goodness, how are we going to orchestrate
00:10getting a huge octopus squid from Port Lincoln over to Flinders?
00:15An intact specimen found 110km off the Eyre Peninsula by a fisherman with a passion for
00:20marine research.
00:22He came across this while he was out hundreds of kilometres from shore and rang me up and
00:28said, look I've just come across this giant squid, it's mostly intact, it's a dead one
00:32floating on the surface, do you want it?
00:35And I said yes.
00:36The 140kg squid was then frozen and carted to Flinders University for a rare dissection
00:42open to the public.
00:44This is actually the second time anybody in South Australia has gotten to dissect one
00:49of these squid.
00:50So to get your hands on a specimen, especially one of this quality, is exceptionally rare.
00:55The gooey display causing one viewer to fall off their chair.
00:58Find it a bit gross?
00:59Yeah but I've seen worse.
01:00I thought it was going to be very gross but like it wasn't that bad actually.
01:05I was expecting it to be a bit small, I didn't expect it to be that big.
01:09These octopus squids are mostly found in the deep sea where they usually end up fish food
01:13for sperm whales roaming the southern ocean.
01:16But one of the aims of this dissection is to work out just how this squid died.
01:20How many of you guys want to throw this on the barbecue and see how it tastes?
01:25Though the beast is unfortunately inedible, researchers hope its attraction is longer
01:30lasting.
01:31To be able to actually see something in real life, you get a totally different perspective
01:35of it and I'm hoping that these opportunities will actually inspire students to take that
01:41next step.
01:42Some budding marine biologists getting their first taste up close and personal.