Kraken

Sailors in the North Atlantic have told stories of a massive sea creature capable of dragging ships beneath the waves for at least a thousand years. Norse sagas from the 13th century describe the Kraken as an island-sized beast lurking off the coasts of Norway and Iceland. The creature was said to create dangerous whirlpools when it submerged and could pull entire vessels down with its enormous arms.

The first detailed scientific description came from Erik Pontoppidan, the Bishop of Bergen, Norway, who included the Kraken in his 1752 work "The Natural History of Norway." Pontoppidan described a creature so large that it could be mistaken for a series of small islands. He recorded fishermen's accounts of hauling up enormous quantities of fish above the Kraken's resting place, suggesting it attracted prey. Carolus Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, initially included the Kraken in his 1735 edition of "Systema Naturae" as a cephalopod, though he removed it from later editions.

The mystery of the Kraken began to resolve in the 19th century when giant squid specimens started washing ashore. In 1853, a giant squid beak was recovered from the stomach of a sperm whale, proving the existence of enormous cephalopods. In 1873, two fishermen off the coast of Newfoundland reportedly fought off a giant squid that grabbed their boat, cutting off one of its tentacles with a hatchet. The severed tentacle measured 19 feet. Throughout the late 1800s, multiple giant squid carcasses washed up on beaches in Newfoundland and Norway, some measuring 40 feet or more.

The giant squid (Architeuthis dux) is now recognized as a real animal that can reach lengths of 43 feet or more. Its even larger relative, the colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni), can grow to at least 46 feet and possesses rotating hooks on its tentacles. The first live giant squid was filmed in its natural deep-sea habitat by Japanese researchers Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori in 2004, at a depth of 2,950 feet.

While the discovery of giant and colossal squid has provided a plausible biological basis for Kraken legends, some cryptozoologists argue that even larger, undiscovered cephalopods may exist in the deep ocean. Sucker marks found on sperm whales have occasionally measured larger than those attributable to known squid species. Whether the Kraken of legend was simply an early encounter with giant squid or something more remains an open question.