Re: On "Colossal" squid

[Danvarner@aol.com]

  dino_rampage@hotmail.com (Dino Rampage) asks:
    
<< Oh my God. Since when have _Architeuthis_ been filmed live? Have I been 
missing anything? >>

       The giant squids recently filmed were larval and tiny, so don't get 
too excited.

<< But I suddenly recall the existence of some pretty huge squid in the 
Western 
Interior Seaway, _Niobrarateuthis walkeri_ if I can recall correctly (Dan 
Varner, any info?) Does anyone know whether it was an quick, active predator 
of large prey or was it slower & subsisting more on small fish & the like? 
Just started wondering how it would be like if a _Tylosaurus_ or 
_Mosasaurus_ tried to attack one. Hmm... the Mesozoic analog of _Physeter 
catodon_ versus _Architeuthis dux_ (or _Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni_?) >>

       I don't have a copy of the paper at hand, but I think J.D.Stewart and 
Ken Carpenter described a squid pen that was bitten by a mosasaur. The 
reference is 
Stewart, J. D. and K. Carpenter, 1990. Examples of vertebrate predation on 
cephalopods in the late Cretaceous of the Western Interior. Pages 203-206 in 
Boucot, A. J., ed., Evolutionary paleobiology of behavior and coevolution. 
Elsevier, New York, 750 pp. Ken should be around here in case my poor memory 
needs correcting. The squid I saw in the Pierre Shale is Teusoteuthis (sp?). 
Six-foot pens have been found indicating a huge animal. I've always been 
interested in a giant squid that lived in a supposedly shallow seaway. No way 
of deciphering behavior that I know of.

<< It just boggles the mind on the astounding variety of large predatory & 
piscivorous animals in the Western Interior Seaway. >>

       When you get an almost instantaneous sample in or near a bentonite 
("fossil" volcanic ash) it can be quite amazing. There's stuff all over the 
place. The sea must have frothed with the damn things. I've always like the 
old restoration that can be seen here (scroll down to bottom of the page):
http://www.oceansofkansas.com/KAS2003.html
       DV