page_title: Cephalopod size
section_title: Dana octopus squid (Taningia danae)
hierarchical_section_title: Cephalopod size / Maximum size / Scientifically validated records / Dana octopus squid (Taningia danae)
context_page_description: Cephalopods vary enormously in size. The smallest are only about 1 centimetre long and weigh less than 1 gram at maturity, while the largest—the giant and colossal squids—can exceed 10 metres in length and weigh close to half a tonne, making them the largest living invertebrates. Living species range in mass more than three-billion-fold, or across nine orders of magnitude, from the lightest hatchlings to the heaviest adults. Certain cephalopod species are also noted for having individual body parts of exceptional size. The giant and colossal squids, for example, have the largest known eyes among living animals.
  Cephalopods were at one time the largest of all organisms on Earth, and numerous species of comparable size to the largest present day squids are known from the fossil record, including enormous examples of ammonoids, belemnoids, nautiloids, orthoceratoids, teuthids, and vampyromorphids. In terms of mass, the largest of all known cephalopods were likely the giant shelled ammonoids and endocerid nautiloids, though perhaps still second to the largest living cephalopods when considering tissue mass alone.
  Giant cephalopods have fascinated humankind since time immemorial.
context_section_description: The third-heaviest extant squid species is Taningia danae, also known as the Dana octopus squid. The largest well documented specimen is a 160 cm ML mature female reported by Roper & Vecchione (1993) from the North Atlantic. The original paper gave the mass of this specimen as 61.4 kg (135 lb), but according to Roper & Jereb (2010h:266) this figure is wrong and stems from a typographical error, the correct mass being 161.4 kg (356 lb). Roper & Vecchione (1993) were however consistent in their use of the 61.4 kg figure. At one point they wrote:
  [...] Zeidler (1981) reported on three large specimens of T. danae found floating dead at the surface by fishermen about 120 km [75 mi] offshore from Port Lincoln, South Australia. One specimen was not retained, but the other two were; one with head and arms missing had a dorsal mantle length of 158 cm [5.18 ft] and weighed 95 kg [209 lb], and the other in near-perfect condition was 2.1 m [6.9 ft] total length (ML not given) and 110 kg [240 lb]. These weights seem excessive compared with our specimen of slightly larger size (61.4 kg, 135 lbs) and we suspect that these weights were incorrectly reported as kg instead of lb. The 158 cm [5.18 ft] specimen is, to our knowledge, the largest T. danae reported until the 160 cm [5.2 ft] specimen we record here from the western Atlantic. (Roper & Vecchione, 1993:449)
  Another similarly large specimen—a female weighing 124 kg (273 lb)—was reported from northern Spanish waters by González et al. (2003:297) (see also initial reports by [Anonymous], 2000 and Wong, 2000). In July 2010, a sperm whale was photographed off the Azorean island of Faial with a large squid—likely T. danae—in its mouth. The specimen's maximum width, from fin tip to fin tip, was estimated at 1.5–2 m (4.9–6.6 ft); this would approximate its mantle length (Vecchione et al., 2010).
caption: Onykia robusta grows to a mantle length of at least 2 m (6.6 ft)
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