No, seriously. That’s really funny if you know your Squid and your modern quotations.

Well, the Kiwis have finally done it: landed the Calamari Colossal, the King of Squid, or perhaps we should say the Prince Consort of Squid, the female of the species being deadlier, weightier, and – er – sizier than the male in the case of the Colossal Squid, Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni.

New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the squid, weighing an estimated 450 kilograms (990 pounds), took two hours to land in Antarctic waters.

The fishermen were catching Patagonian toothfish south of New Zealand “and the squid was eating a hooked toothfish when it was hauled from the deep,” he said.

Colossal squid, known by the scientific name Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, are estimated to grow up to 14 meters (46 feet) long and have long been one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep ocean.

Archie hints that servants of the Elder Gods are behind a sinister plot…indeed, who is to say that the Great Cthulhu did not send his minion to reel in some Kiwis, but was instead distracted by the toothsome toothfish and, while so distracted and munching thereupon, hauled ignominiously to the surface and then tossed in the freezer with the rest of the entrees-to-be.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. It is interesting to note that the YouTube videos feature names like “Huge Colossal Squid Caught,” as if there were a smaller kind of, uh, Colossal Fucking Squid, say the Moderately Colossal Squid or the Petite Colossal Squid. Or just the Coloss-ish Squid.

Video of this unmistakably Colossal Colossal Squid after the jump. And thanks to everyone who prodded me to blog about this, starting with Juvenal, Timethief, and Archie. As Juvenal remarked in the comments section on this very blog, it’s a strange and interconnected world we live in when a British man wakes up, checks BBC, and the first thing he thinks to do is email a Canadian he’s never met about some Antarctic squid.

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