A New Zealand aquarium is housing a giant squid that washed up on the shores of one of the country's beaches.
According to the Marlborough Express, beachgoers at the South Bay beach in Kaikoura first spotted the squid Tuesday morning. Bruce Bennett was walking his dog when he saw the creature and guessed it washed up the previously night, he told the newspaper.
The Kaikoura Aquarium got to the beach Tuesday "before the birds got to it," it said in a Facebook post. In a later post, the aquarium said it successfully returned the squid to its facility where it is currently being kept in a freezer and on display.
"Some samples will so far be going to both Auckland and Otago universities for further research," the aquarium said.
Megan Lewis, a marine biologist and the Kaikoura Aquarium's owner, told the Times she identified the squid as an adult female, but could not pinpoint an age.
"They tend to grow very fast and live not very long," she said. "The majority of its weight is in the head, which is in pristine condition.
"There's no indication of how it died - the stomach was full so it wasn't hungry."
Lewis said her aquarium has no plans of moving the squid any time soon and there does not seem to be anything to suggest otherwise. Its longest tentacle measures at five meters long and was about 7.5 meters from top to bottom. The squid was 1.6 meters around and its head was two meters itself, with an eye measuring 19 centimeters in diameter.
Said Lewis, "We love showing people what comes out of the [Kaikoura] canyon."
