Giant Octopus

This monster is believed to be still living in our time. One of the biggest sea monster in the world.

In 1870 the French novelist Jules Verne publishes his novel "20000 leagues under the sea" ("Vingt milles lieues sous les mers"). He tells the tale of the Captain Nemo, who - being an Indian rajah - lost all his family during the English occupation of India. Together with friends he builds the submarine "Nautilus" with which far off civilization he fights a war against suppression and injustice.

The name "Nautilus" of this submarine was taken from a cephalopod, that uses its shell like a submarine uses its diving tanks. The Nautilus can increase and decrease its depth in the sea by changing the gas pressure in its shell's chambers. its the same way modern submarines work, that were not yet known, when Jules Verne wrote his book. US navy's first nuclear submarine also was named Nautilus, after its famous fictional predecessor.

During its voyages the Nautilus gets into contact with several giant octopuses that attack the boat and have to be fought by the crew. Jules Verne not only tells of how the crew manages in desperate battles to defend the boat against the monsters, but in the preface to the battle (chapter 18) several crewmembers talk about the legend of the giant octopus. Jules Verne describes, that Olaus Magnus had written about a cephalopod one mile in length. Olaus Magnus in the 17th century was archbishop of Uppsala in Sweden and collected lots of stories from the nordic fishermen. He writes about a monstrous fish, whose square head has got horns as long as tree roots, whose eye was glassy and cruel, a cubit in diameter and deep red in colour. It seems probable, that, if he did not see one himself, Olaus Magnus at least spoke to fishermen who had seen a giant octopus. The report contains description of the octopus's overall size of ten cubits and a tentacle length of another ten cubits. Estimating a cubit being approximately 2 to 3 feet, the Olaus octopus must have measured about 40 to 60 feet.

The largest octopus known today is Enteroctopus dolfleini, the Pacific giant octopus.