A report of the incident filed by the ship's captain was almost certainly seen by Jules Verne and adapted by him for the description of the monstrous squid in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The giant squid came to public prominence in 1861 when the French corvette Alecton encountered a live animal ( #18) at the surface while navigating near Tenerife. In the same work, Steenstrup also named a second species, Architeuthis monachus, based on a preserved beak, the only part saved from a carcass that washed ashore in Denmark in 1853 ( #13). The giant squid did not gain widespread scientific acceptance until specimens became available to zoologists in the second half of the 19th century, beginning with the formal naming of Architeuthis dux by Japetus Steenstrup in 1857, from fragmentary Bahamian material collected two years earlier ( #14 on this list).
Tales of giant squid have been common among mariners since ancient times, but the animals were long considered mythical and often associated with the kraken of Nordic legend. This incident almost certainly inspired the depiction of the giant squid in Jules Verne's 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. The list also covers specimens incorrectly assigned to the genus Architeuthis in original descriptions or later publications.įrench corvette Alecton attempts to capture a giant squid in 1861 ( #18). It includes animals that were caught by fishermen, found washed ashore, recovered (in whole or in part) from sperm whales and other predatory species, as well as those reliably sighted at sea. This list of giant squid specimens and sightings is a comprehensive timeline of recorded human encounters with members of the genus Architeuthis, popularly known as giant squid.
The photograph includes contemporaneous annotations by zoologist Addison Emery Verrill, including a 1-foot scale bar (top left) and detailed marginal notes. Harvey wrote in his journal: "I knew that I had in my possession what all the savants in the world did not what the museums in the world did not contain A photograph could not lie and would silence the gainsayers". The earliest known photograph of an intact giant squid, showing the arms, tentacles and buccal region of the head (including beak) of a specimen from Logy Bay, Newfoundland ( #30 on this list), draped over Reverend Moses Harvey's sponge bath, November or December 1873.
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