Well, what does that look like to you?

To me, it looks both colosoid and octopudlian. You might be different, I dunno. We all have to live our own truths, even if it involves sleeping in a tinfoil-lined Chevy Impala on somebody’s back forty. Didn’t know you could get wireless inet out here, but it’s right handy.

Where was I? Oh yeah, Colossal Octopus. Tako Grande. Venti. Whatever.

So here, from the Unmuseum, is the story of the St. Augustine Colossal Squid Landing. Gather ’round the campfire/manifold intake, children, and listen well…

The Highlights:

The portion of the creature that remained, the body minus the arms, was eighteen feet in length and ten feet wide. Parts of tentacles, unattached to the body, stretched as long as 36 feet with a diameter of 10 inches. Dr. Webb estimated weight at four or five tons.

Strangely enough, despite the importance of the find, neither Dr. Verrill, nor any other scientist, traveled to St. Augustine to view the carcass in person.

Webb finally sent Verrill a sample of the tissue of the creature preserved in formalin. Verrill was surprised to find it had the appearance of blubber and abruptly changed his mind stating that he now believed the creature was a whale and that the arms were not associated with the body.

The whole matter would have rested like that if it hadn’t been for Forrest Wood, the director of Marine Studios (later Marineland) in Florida. Wood came across an old news story about the monster and discovered that Webb’s sample was still stored at the Smithsonian Institution.

Wood persuaded the Smithsonian to let Dr. Joseph Gennaro, of the University of Florida, to take some of the samples for analysis. Gennaro immediately recognized that the material was not blubber and examination under a microscope showed the tissue was more similar to octopus than whale or squid. Further tests later confirmed this conclusion.

Honestly, look at that monster!

Is it any wonder that my greatest fear is snorkling?

When you have your period, it’s called “chumming.”