200 kg Squid washed up on Tasmania's coast

Zoologists say it remains a mystery how a 200-kilogram giant squid came to be washed up on Tasmania's west coast.

The squid was found by a member of the public on a beach near Strahan on Tuesday night.

Zoologists from the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery say the squid's hood and body is more than three metres long and they estimate its full size with tentacles would have been seven metres, with a weight of around 200kg.

They believe it is the first of its kind to be washed up on the west coast.

The Museum's senior curator of invertebrate zoology Genefor Walker-Smith says it is exciting to be able to learn from the rare specimen, but it is still not clear how it died.

"There's no marks to suggest it was attacked by anything," she said. "It could have just died of old age."

More on the ABC site (including a photo of this huge bugger !) http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/07/12/1976433.htm

Contributed by Tim Hochgrebe added 2007-07-21