Sea Monsters (3 page)

When
Jacques Cousteau (zhahk koo-STOH) was a young man in France, he had a bad car accident. To get stronger, Jacques swam in the ocean every day. He fell in love with the sea and chose to spend his life studying it.

Jacques invented special underwater cameras and scuba gear. For many years, Jacques made underwater movies and
photographs while sailing aboard his famous boat, the
Calypso.
People all over the globe came to know the beautiful world of the ocean.

Jacques wanted everyone to treat the oceans with care. “People protect what they love,” he said.

Since Jacques’s death, scientists have built new, unmanned
submarines. They are able to go deep into the ocean to gather facts. In the future, we will all have a better idea of the wonderful blue world of Jacques Cousteau.

In the summer of 1997, scientists made a puzzling discovery. Underwater sensors had picked up very strange sounds. The noises seemed to come from a really huge underwater animal. But just what kind of animal? No animal they knew could make noises like this. The scientists named the mystery creature “the Bloop.”

If an animal like
the Bloop exists, it is larger than the biggest
blue whale. In fact, if this animal exists, it might be the largest animal on earth! But to this day, no one has a clue about what the Bloop really is. The strange sounds have never been heard again.

Most
marine
animals we know about live near the surface of the ocean. But many other creatures live deep beneath the sea.

Sometimes an animal often called a “sea monster” swims up to the surface from its home in the deep. This scary-looking animal is known as the
giant squid.

There are many kinds of squids, but the
giant squid
is one of the largest. Because giant squids live deep in the sea, we do not know a lot about them.

We do know that giant squids have huge heads and eyes. They have strong, hard beaks, eight arms, and two
tentacles. The tentacles are much longer than the arms. They can grow to over thirty feet long! Powerful suckers lined with teeth cover each arm. The tentacles have suckers only at the ends.

Giant squids have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. Their eyes are about fifteen inches wide. Think soccer balls or basketballs! Giant squids need their large eyes to see in the dark, deep water.

Squids are
carnivores
(KAR-nuh-vorz), or meat-eaters. Giant squids eat marine animals, but experts are not sure exactly what kind.