Kraken The Norse and other Scandinavians have long told of a gigantic, ship-sinking monster called the kraken. In fact, Erik Pontopiddan, the Bishop of Bergen, described the kraken in his book The Natural History Of Norway (1752). Pontopiddan described the kraken as "an English mile and a half in circumference; some say more" and that its arms could pull the "largest man-of-war" to the bottom of the sea. Undoubtedly, Pontopiddan exaggerated the size of the animal greatly; however, the source of the legends has been traced to Architeuthis teuthoidea, the giant squid. The giant squid was first proposed by Johan Steenstrup, a Danish zoologist, in 1857. The existence of the giant squid seemed certain to be acknowledged in 1861, when the crew of the French warship Alecton retrieved a section of the tail of a gigantic squid they encountered in the Canary Islands. But despite this physical evidence, the crew of the Alecton were branded as liars. Steenstrup's vindication came in the early 1870s, when A.S. Packard and other zoologists heard stories of numerous gigantic squids seen near the coast of both Newfoundland and Labrador. In 1873, fisherman Theophile Piccot showed Alexander Murray a tentacle he had cut off of a gigantic squid seen by both he and his son near St. John's, Newfoundland. Studying the tentacle, Murray concluded that the animal had been at least 35 feet long. The question of the giant squid's existence had been satisfactorally proven, and the Newfoundland squids were christened Architeuthis. So the squid's existence is no longer questioned--but many things about the animal are still up for debate. We have virtually no data on diet, reproduction, and habitat. No live specimen of giant squid has ever been captured by science for close observation. But undoubtedly the most interesting fact is that nobody is quite sure how large a giant squid can grow. The largest specimen recorded was found on a beach in New Zealand in 1880. That one measured 65 feet in overall length, with tentacles outstretched. However, scars found on whales' bodies point to considerably larger specimens in the sea. Some scars are as much as 18 inches in diameter--truly gigantic, considering scars of even as little as two or three inches would indicate large specimens. Most teuthologists argue that the scars constitute "unreliable evidence" for the existence of kraken-sized squid, since a scar would grow as the whale grows. But some writers dispute this claim. Bernard Heuvelmans has said that "a baby whale would be kept well away from such huge brutes, and, if attacked, would hardly survive". So it seems that the scars are received after the whale has reached maturity; therefore, they may, after all, be an accurate way of determining the squid's size. Add to the scar evidence a few items of physical evidence found in whale stomachs--one captain reportedly retrieved a tentacle 45 feet long--and the case for the kraken becomes a very good one. However, it is a question which will remain unsolved until a specimen is brought into a laboratory for closer examination.

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