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[echeng]

While we were in Ogasawara, we photographed the carcasses of three large cephalopods spit up by sperm whales. The first was some sort of pelagic octopus, the second, a very large squid (arm segment floating in the water, body in the mouth of a sperm whale), and the third, a 351-cm giant squid arm, which was photographed and then recovered for research (they got this after I left -- have yet to see photos).

This is probably a stretch, but does anyone have any idea what these critters are? As a reminder, Ogasawara is where the footage of a live Architeuthis was taken back in 2006.

Pelagic octopus (Tony Wu surmises that it might be a (Haliphron atlanticus) seven-arm octopus):



For scale, here's Tony floating above it:



Squid arm segment. Coloration looks similar to the coloration of the arms of the Architeuthis in the Ogasawara video from 2006.



Squid chunk in sperm whale mouth. We think it's the same squid, because they were in the same area:

[danielandrewclem]

I forwarded this post to Steve O'Shea, the renowned teuthologist. I imagine he'll be able to help.