Marine monsters like the kraken and Scylla from Greek mythology may have been inspired by real-life giant squids, which can grow over 40 feet long. These massive creatures are rarely seen in their natural habitat, making any sighting especially remarkable and likely contributing to the legends surrounding them. Marine biologist Richard Ellis suggests that tales of sea monsters grew more exaggerated with each retelling, based on the unusual appearance of dead or dying squids found at the surface. Historical depictions, like those in Conrad Gesner's 16th-century work, show features that resemble giant squids, blending myth and reality. Ultimately, these fascinating animals have had a strong influence on seafaring myths throughout history.
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Release the Kraken
Denizens of the deep have enthralled humans for centuries, Greek myths pitted Hercules and Perseus against the serpentine sea monster Cetus. A 13th-century Icelandic saga told of the sea beast Hafgufa, which swallowed men and ships alike. In 1830, Alfred Lord Tennyson penned a sonnet about the kraken, a legendary Scandinavian sea creature so charismatic that 150 years later Hollywood decided to unleash it on ancient Greece in Clash of the Titans.
These marine monsters may have a basis in fact Giant squid may not reach the size of the gigantic kraken, which was sometimes depicted demolishing boats with its massive tentacles. but they are formidable and impressive animals The largest giant squid are thought to measure more than 40 feet from the tips of their tentacles to the end of their mantle or body. That's about the length of a school bus.Sighting a squid as big as a bus is still a momentous feat. Photos and videos of these benthic behemoths in their natural habitat are rare, headline-making events. So imagine a sighting centuries ago: it would certainly have been exceptional fodder for any seafarer's stories. And as those tales were shared, the creature likely grew with each retelling, eventually reaching titanic proportions.
In his book The Search for the Giant Squid, marine biologist and Museum Research Associate Richard Ellis speculates that even Greek myths of the many-armed Scylla and the Hydra, one of Hercules's foes, could have been inspired by glimpses of giant squid
Since enormous cephalopods usually keep to mid to deep-water habitats, the most common way to see a giant squrd would have been to spot a dead or dying squid that had floated to the surface: These animats bodies tong thin, and utterly strange may have helped to give life to legends of serpentine sea monstersIn Conrad Gesner's 16th-century Historiae Animalium-for example, the hydra is depictedas having a trunk bike body with many heads, each one sitting on the end of a long, serpentine neck it is not impossible Ellis points out to see the heads as prms, and the body as that of a large cephalopod Lose the feet, and Gesner's hydra turns out to be a pretty decent depiction of a giant squid
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