Inside Nature's Giants - Giant Squid

It wasn't uncommon just a few centuries ago for sailors to tell tales of gigantic sea monsters whose tentacles would crush entire ships. Jules Verne's version of this monster as it attacked Captain Nemo's Nautilus is probably a good example of the kind of thing many people used to believe. Now, while it might be possible for giant squids to really be as large as those old accounts, the largest documented case, as far as I know, puts these creatures at 18 meters in length (59 feet) with a 5 meter mantle (16.4 feet). It may not compare to the tales of old, but I'm certainly impressed.

In today's installment of the fascinating documentary series Inside Nature's Giants, our intrepid scientists get their hands on a beautiful deep-water specimen and attempt to understand its anatomy, physiology and evolutionary history. The secrets hidden inside the body of this and other related creatures are a testament to the ingenuity of the evolutionary process. Forget the aliens of science fiction... reality kicks their ass.

Check out a battle to the death between a shark and an octopus