Squid Squid Squid are cephalopods in the order Teuthida with elongated bodies, large eyes, eight arms and two tentacles. Like all other cephalopods, squid have a distinct head, bilateral symmetry, and a mantle. They are mainly soft-bodied, like octopuses, but have a small internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin. Squid can change colour for camouflage and signalling. Some species are bioluminescent, using their light for counter-illumination camouflage. Squid are members of the class Cephalopoda, subclass Coleoidea. The squid orders Myopsida and Oegopsida are in the superorder Decapodiformes (from the Greek for "ten-legged"). Two
Colossal squid considering using a giant microwave to defrost the squid because thawing it at room temperature would take several days and it would likely begin to decompose on the outside while the core remained frozen. However, they later opted for the more conventional approach of thawing the specimen in a bath of salt water. After thawing, the squid measured only in total length, with the tentacles having shrunk significantly. Although initially thought to be a male, closer inspection of the specimen showed it to be a female. Thawing and dissection of the specimen took place at the Museum of New Zealand