Scientists use crittercam to search for sea's most elusive creature

0 Comments | Insight on the News, May 5, 1997 | by Catherine Young

Jules Verne would approve: Scientists from three countries are trying to capture a sea monster -- the giant squid -- never before seen alive in its natural habitat. They hope to snap its picture for posterity.

Clyde Roper, a natural historian at the Smithsonian Institution, is talking about his recent exploration of an undersea canyon off the coast of New Zealand, where the Pacific Ocean reaches a depth of 3,280 feet. Among the expedition's goals: Attach a camera (dubbed the "Crittercam") by suction cup to the back of a sperm whale -- a predator of the giant squid -- in an effort to capture the reclusive mollusk film. film.

"The weather turned sour," recalls Roper, explaining the difficulties of the work. The team hit the tail end of the cyclone Gavin, its 13-foot waves and 50-knot winds making it hard to attach the camera.

Roper is an-expert on Architeuthis dux, the giant squid, and leader of more than a dozen scientists from the United States, Great Britain and New Zealand intent on filming their quarry as well as studying the underwater canyon and its marine life. "The team down there at the moment is trying to use the Crittercam to film the squid and we are very optimistic that they will be able to use it," he says.

The camera, developed by the National Geographic Society, films for three hours before a timed mechanism releases the suction cup from the whale and it floats to the surface. Two other underwater cameras are being used: one aboard the 7-foot remote-controlled submarine Odyssey II, another lowered by cable from a boat to depths of up to 5,000 feet. "We wanted to examine the ecosystem of deep-sea marine life and we came back with a lot of valuable data," says Roper. "The information includes diving and feeding patterns of the sperm whale and video of the animal and plant life of the sea." So far, the team has recorded rare footage of "challenge behavior" -- two male sperm whales charging into each other at full speed, butting heads in an apparent dispute about territory or mates.

James Bellingham, principal research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the expedition, agrees the project is providing invaluable data. "There was an enormous amount of variability in the canyon," he says. "At points it was as if the submarine was flying through a blizzard. We saw everything from small unidentifiable creatures to jellyfish. In other areas it was completely black."

The Smithsonian, MIT and National Geographic plan to mount another expedition in 1998 using new equipment. "Next year we will go back to the Kaikoura Canyon with the manned submersible called the Johnson Sealink," says Roper. MIT's Sealink can reach depths of 3,600 feet, but more importantly, the presence of "human brain and human eyes mean we can make instant decisions and assessments."

The giant squid is one of the few remaining creatures that have eluded modern scientists -- their knowledge of the animal comes from dead or dying specimens washed up on shores, or remains found in the bellies of sperm whales. It is one of at least 10 species of squid that are 7 feet or longer -- it can reach a length of 60 feet and weigh up to a ton -- and it lives in all oceans at depths up to 2,300 feet.

The beast truly is fantastic. Its eyes, almost as complex as the human eye, are as large as dinner plates. Eight of its arms are lined with two rows of powerful suckers, each with a rim of horny teeth. It has two longer, thinner tentacles with flared ends, each with four rows of tooth-rimmed suckers that pull food into its beak-like jaw. The squid eats its own kind as well as fish.

A giant squid moves by jet propulsion. It sucks water into its red, torpedo-shaped body, called the mantle, then jets it out of its funnel. (In other species, the funnel squirts ink and lay eggs.) The only preserved giant squid can be seen at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of Natural History.