Huge gelatinous sea creature found off the coast of Chile.

[das_ben]

Octopus? Rotting whale? Aliens? You decide! (http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/science/07/02/giant.find/index.html)

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/nm/20030702/mdf309627.jpg

[BobTheFearlessFish]

i would guess its a deep sea creature of some sort. god knows how it got to the surface though

[EtherRex]

Stranger things happen at sea :)

[sublime]

I'd eat it.

[Olethros]

In that case, I hope you like the taste of ammonia, sublime. Because that's pretty much all the giant squid will taste of. Sperm whales seem to like it, though.

Edit: Actually, according to some sources, this might be the first fully-grown speciment of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni or "Colossal squid" found. Imagine how cool it'd be to see a live one close up, even though it might be a fairly brief one-time experience.

[Ranger 223]

I was always amazed by marine biology. a friend of mine has a saltwater tank, and a Common Black Devil as a pet fish (also known as Deep Sea angler) They are abbsolutely terrific. They look like swimming skeletons with sparkles on them. And their teeth are about 2-3 inches long, and overlap one another.

What was the giant shark that had scientists standing in a model of it's jaws? said to be hndreds of feet long, the Megolodon? (sp?)

[Olethros]

That'd be the Carcharodon Megalodon. But it's usually estimated to have been "only" about 12-15 meters (40'-50') in length.

[MP_Lord_Kee]

Somehow this reminds me of something I read last week...
Dagon by H.P Lovecraft, 1917

//Kee

[Spier]

Looks like Cthulhu finally met his maker..

[Ranger 223]

aha, thats it, thanks Olethros. Thats still an awfully large Shark. Id hate to be swimming in it's path. Wonder what it's feeding habits were like. Maybe just swam with it's mouth open, taking in whatever it got?

Some say it's dead, others say it's alive and living deep deep deep down. Who knows what kind of **** is living down there...

[Cap'n Beeb]

It's Cthulhu! :eek:

[TheWhaleShark]

It looks a bit like a giant octopus to me; if it were a squid, I'd imagine it would be quite a bit more elongated rather than the sprawling blob that it currently is.

It's always cool to see the strange, freakish things that live in the deep seas. It always makes me wonder just what else could be down there.

[[UMC]Boron]

they estimate that blob of snot to weigh 13 tons!!

[Ice]

It's Cthulhu!

Oh my god, they killed squidy! Those bastards!

[Cap'n Beeb]

Fool, you cant kill an elder god.

[Ice]

That lump is dead, so he must still be alive.......somewhere....

[Shrap]

Cthulhu is WAY more sexy than this.

[Crazy_Ivan]

i would guess its a deep sea creature of some sort. god knows how it got to the surface though
There was a dead sperm whale nearby... perhaps both were killed in a fight between them.

[MadWoffen]

Saw this first on the teletext and found later an article on a chilean magazine. Now it's everywhere but they are awaiting analysis to know what it is. It could also be the rotting rests of a whale.

Note that in China there was a new apparition of the Yeti/Big Foot, sighted by many villagers and a journalist.

Note also it is common to find a lot of new species every year in the world, not only insects but also vertebrates and even mammals. I don't remember the average number per year but it was quite high.

About deep sea sharks, 3 or 4 years ago, a French biologist team used a very deep submarine to explore a small part of these seas. They found new species, amongst them, big deep sea sharks (more tan 5 meters) never met in the past. But after following them a bit and witnessing their eat habits, it seems they are mainly scavengers, eating all rotten corpses falling from the above level. Some common sharks are also known to frequent the deeps, peacefull ones like the whale shark but also fierce ones like the tiger shark. A team of Cousteau once witnessed a couple of killer whales diving deep in the open ocean (at first they were a bit frightened since they were in some sort of "desert" and knew they could have been a target, even if no attack on humans by killer whales has never been reported) to come back later with a... 6 meters long tiger shark in their jaws. Try to imagine the fight it should have been. :)

[Crazy_Ivan]

big deep sea sharks
isn't that the Greenland Shark
This one (http://www.mar.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/shark/english/greenland.htm)

Saw this first on the teletext and found later an article on a chilean magazine. Now it's everywhere but they are awaiting analysis to know what it is. It could also be the rotting rests of a whale.
as the chileans preserved the samples with the wrong chemicals, they have to take new samples for DNA testing...

[MadWoffen]

Hmm, can't tell really but maybe not since this expedition was in equatorian waters IIRC and it was stated it was an unknown shark unlike your example that is fished in the northern regions.