What's amazing about the Kraken stories is that, of all the sea monster tales we have, we have the best evidence that these are real. The giant squid lives in most of the world's oceans and is among the biggest animals in the sea . . . The existence of the giant squid, genus Architeuthis, is well accepted by science though few have ever been seen, and little is known about their habits. Giant squid are carnivorous mollusks that have a long, torpedo shaped body. No one has ever seen a live giant squid, so National Geographic, in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institute and several academic institutions, organized an expedition to Kaikoura Canyon, off the coast of New Zealand, to pursue the elusive animal.
Many people know that they are hunted by sperm whales.
This is fascinating to most of us, because the giant squid can be as long as the sperm whale that is hunting it. Our imaginations can go wild imagining the fight between the two. The Coelacanth fish, until December 1938, was thought to be extinct for 65 million years. In that year a fishing trawler operating off the tip of South Africa netted a very strange looking creature. Though it didn't look edible the captain of the boat decided to take the hundred and twenty-six pound, five foot long animal, with bulging blue eyes and heavy, bluish scales, back to port because it seemed so strange.