SARASOTA, Fla. – Even among Florida’s long list of fauna, the giant squid is exceedingly rare.
Some can be found deep in the waters off Southeast Florida, possibly living thousands of feet below the surface. However, you’re not likely to find them at the beach, as shallow water is fatal for them.
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Thanks to their massive size and the mystery surrounding them, historical accounts of giant squids often portrayed them as “sea monsters.”
But even though you won’t find one on a trip to the Gulf, that doesn’t mean you’re out of options.
Visitors to the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium in Sarasota can get a look at the corpse of a 37-foot-long giant squid, which has been lovingly nicknamed “Molly the Mollusk.”
Molly’s remains are preserved in a tank filled with an isopropyl alcohol mixture, and she can be found in her own exhibit at the aquarium.
While she stretched a full 37 feet in life — roughly the length of a school bus — Molly lost a lot of her fluid after death, meaning she now only extends around 25 feet.
“For females, that’s about average size. The males are a lot longer,” said Kathryn Gentile, the public relations coordinator for the aquarium.
According to Gentile, Molly was accidentally captured by a deep-sea fishing boat off the coast of New Zealand back in 1999.
“It was sort of a happy accident,” Gentile told News 6. “Of course, we never hope that any institution accidentally captures one of these animals. However, it does happen.”
At the time, such fishing vessels would leave the remains of snagged giant squids at sea, and the specimens that were preserved were typically kept in New Zealand.
Because giant squids were caught much more frequently in New Zealand, this meant that very few institutions in the U.S. were able to get their hands on one.
But a senior scientist at Mote — Debbie Ingrao — had been conducting research on giant squids, and after hearing about Molly’s capture, she decided the remains would make for a good addition to the Mote research center.
As a result, Molly was frozen, packed in a nearly 7-foot-long tuna shipping box, and sent via airplane to Mote, Gentile said.
Of course, keeping such a large creature at Mote was a challenge in and of itself.
“At first, she was actually preserved outside just because she is so incredibly long,” Gentile added. “We had her outside because that was the only room that was able to accommodate her size for a long time.”
Creating Molly’s tank took months. Casting the raw materials alone took around 20 weeks. And the seam took up 89 linear feet, which required 8-10 hours per foot. After loads of effort, though, the tank was completed, and Molly was ultimately moved to the exhibit where she’s laid for the past 15 years.
Molly got her nickname when Mote held a “giant-squid naming competition,” which gave young children the opportunity to pick her name.
“We would have kids send in drawings of the giant squid and have names picked out for them,” Gentile told News 6. “And so it was very, very special when we got to see all the different pictures of the squids. Then, a committee picked the drawings, and one was Molly!”
Nowadays, Molly is still one of only a handful of giant squids on display in museums and aquaria globally.
But if you want to see eye-to-eye with a giant squid — the creature with the largest eyes in the animal kingdom — you can visit Mote for yourself at 1600 Ken Thompson Pkwy.
The aquarium is open daily from 9:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tickets range from $21 for children ages 3-12 and $29 for visitors ages 13 and above (children under 3 years old get in for free!).
For more information on the aquarium and its features, visit Mote’s website by clicking here.
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