Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Infamous Giant Squid

We made the giant squid mostly out of paper and streamers. I have a roll of white butchers paper 4' wide and a zillion miles long. The mantle and head together were 20' long and about 2-3' wide because we taped it to the ceiling so that it would bulge out in 3D. The eyes are the size of dinner plates, so we traced our plates. The siphon was a rolled up piece of paper inserted through a slit where the mantle met the head. The arms were 20' of orange streamers and the tentacles were 40' of red streamers with paper suction pads on the ends. Since squids, like octopi, have chromataphores and can change colors and patterns at will (very rapidly), everyone colored the mantle as they pleased!
Interesting squid facts:
Do you know that when squids swallow, their food passes through their brains on the way to their stomachs?
Their blood is green because it's copper based instead of iron based!
Little squids sink if they aren't swimming, big squids float if they don't swim!
They float because they are full of ammonia!
You can't eat a giant squid because it tastes like floor cleaner, but a sperm whale can because it has no taste buds!
The only reason we know about these huge squids is because they float when they die. What else could be down there that we don't know about?!?

1 comment:

Garden State Kate said...

Do you have pictures? A little "visual aid" would be great help!