Last week Catalina Perales-Raya, a researcher from the Oceanographic Centre of the Canary Islands, said that Tenerife is a global hotspot for giant squid sightings. This has been reaffirmed with the discovery of a lifeless specimen on a beach in the south of Tenerife on Wednesday.
The dead squid was found by passers-by on a beach in El Médano, measuring over a metre long, as you can see in the pictures shared by the Médano Coffeeshop on social media.
The channel between Tenerife and La Gomera is one of the most popular places in the world for spotting giant squids, with some measuring up to seven metres in length (including body and tentacles). This suggests the existence of a large colony of these spectacular creatures, finding the ideal habitat for reproduction and feeding in the depths of this channel.
The average body size of these invertebrates captured in Canary Islands waters is 1.40 metres, in addition to the eight arms (suckers) and, especially, the tentacles used to capture prey, and the biggest ones can weigh up to 100 kilograms.
The Architeuthis, scientifically known as the giant squid, thrives in temperate waters and can reach a length of 18 metres (with a body length of 2.4 metres) and weigh up to 275 kilograms. It is considered the largest invertebrate on the planet, and its eyes are the largest in the animal kingdom.
