[Earth] Body of Unknown Creature Has Biologists Baffled

Body of Unknown Creature Has Biologists Baffled

A bout of worry was followed by confusion last Thursday as the corpse of a large sea creature washed up on the beach of Cape West Coast, South Africa. The creature was mistaken for the remains of a Destroyer-class Reaper at first, but upon closer examination was made of flesh and cartilage.

The corpse resembles that of a giant squid in shape, only about twenty times as large as previously documented specimens. From the tip of its longest tentacles to its posterior fins, it measures approximately two hundred meters long. Its mantle (the squid’s “head”), by comparison, is thirty meters in length. The corpse bears a number of plasma burns and is missing some tentacles, suggesting that this creature fought a Reaper.

"We understand far more about life on other planets than we do about what lives in our own ocean," says human biologist Doctor Rachel Snow. "A giant squid this size should not be able to support its own mass, yet somehow it does. I am very eager to study this corpse."

Locals have taken to calling this creature the Kraken.

"There are numerous legends of a giant squid capsizing ships that date back to as late as Earth's nineteenth century," noted xenohistorian Dr. Maia T'Mesa. "We're talking squids so long that they dwarfed ships, with apocryphal accounts of such creatures being recorded in the wild. The legend of the kraken was long thought to be the greatest exaggerations of these, but finding this corpse seems to prove otherwise.”

Four hundred-
No- Six hundred feet or more?

that must be the largest creature ever to live on Earth.

So we had our own Kalross and didn't even know it! Typical.

skhash wonder how it taste.

Oh, wow, that is amazing. How could the humans miss such a big creature?
Terran squids are amazing creatures, I think they have very impressive eyes and look at you.... knowing something

But then, sea is not humanity's natural element, there even seem to be a lot of individuals who can't even swim, is that actually correct?

Skhash, squids taste great if prepared in a proper manner. You on the other hand would maybe think it's even tasty in raw state.

Seeing footage of it, the only thing more monstrous than this is Sarah's mother.

There, I said it. I know she can read it. I don't care.

Somebody's sleeping on the couch tonight.

^

In another world, maybe.



What's curious is how long this thing survived. It seems impractically big- What did it eat?!

Fixed that for ya.

Rajiv back at the old office will be jumping up and down in excitement at this. He was always moaning that Earth didn't measure up in the, er, horrifying animals department to some of the worlds we arranged tours to. Quite why he wanted monstrous carnivores on his planet I don't really know, but he did. And now he's gotten one. Or did. It's dead.

Are there more? Or is this an oversized freak of nature?

Earth actually has produced a great deal of species that could rightly be considered "horrifying" in both the land and sea (horrifying seems an unfitting adjective. Extremely dangerous sounds better). Problem is, before humans even evolved, many of them had been extinct for millions of years. Out of all the species to have ever naturally evolved on our planet, 99.9% have suffered extinction.

In terms of size however, this creature is unprecedented. Blue whales, largest species to have ever evolved on ever lived on Earth, measure up to about thirty meters from tail to head. That's about as long as this creature's head.

The largest recorded squids, the Giants and the Colossal species only go up to 13 meters and 14 meters respectively.

It cannot possibly be a natural species, so its either an alien, or someone's science project run amuck

We've documented what percentage of the species living in our oceans? Half? Less? Pretty bold to say this thing cannot possibly be natural.

Or it is natural, just undiscovered until now.

earth's oceans are massive. It isn't unreasonable that there might be something new.

But what we have documented suggests this to be an extremely unlikely candidate for natural evolution. The only possible way it could have remained hidden would to hide itself in the deeper parts of the ocean, which limits its range of food. And it would need to eat a great deal.

So how does a deeps sea giant come in contact with a Reaper, when Reaper's were on Earth to harvest our populations, which were, as you'll note, on land.

Even if whatever killed it wasn't a Reaper, how come they didn't report it? Why would it attack them at all?

It just does not make sense.

Or there was documentation before and it was dismissed for the same reasons you're giving.

Facisnating. I'm sure that would have been a thing to behold. Though, the creature obviously had less succes then Kalros did this "Kraken" manage to kill it's target? Are there more of them?

Next, they'll tell me that they found the Loch Ness Monster and that it killed a Destroyer. Or maybe a den of Sasquatches engaged a Reaper force. Or a drop-bear killed a Dreadnought.

So you're saying maybe there was evidence that such a creature existing, and it was dismissed because, beyond the tales of sailors who thought manatees were mermaids and that sea serpents were real, there was no indication that they could be confused for something as big as a Destroyer?

I'm sorry, but is everyone else being deliberately obtuse today?

HEY GUYS

GUESS WHERE THE NEXT MANNOK-VAHK IS GUNNA BE HOSTED?!

I don't know Mrs Knox, many planets have documented bigger creatures that that in the abyss. They have many ingenious system to get by and hunt. Usually they're inactive most of the time and have burst of activity to eat or mate. Nature is extremely adaptive.

I find it more likely for it be one of the creatures you describe than it to be native to Earth. Nature might be adaptive, but superpredators tend to make a mark.

who's up fer some squid rings

I KNOW I AM