// Workers AI · dad joke modeWhy did Archie go to the party? Because he was an ink-redible dancer.
Archie the giant squid is an 8.62 meter (28.3 ft) long, preserved female giant squid in the London Natural History Museum Spirit Collection, as a display and as a specimen.[1] Her name "Archie" is short for Architeuthis dux, the Latin name for the giant squid.[2] She is not considered fully grown, as giant squid can grow up to 13 or 14 meters long.[2] She has 8 shorter arms covered with serrated suction cups and 2 longer feeding tentacles.[3] When attempting to weigh her, Archie broke the museum's scales, so her weight is estimated somewhere upwards of 200 kg.[2] Archie is held in a custom acrylic 9-meter transparent tank filled with a 10% solution of formol-saline, which is a mix between salt water and formolin.[4] She is the biggest fluid-preserved specimen at the museum.[3]
Background
[edit]This Architeuthis dux was caught off of the Falkland Islands in March 2004,[5] by a fishing trawler at a depth of 220 meters.[5] Her catch was considered extremely rare because most discovered remains of giant squid are fragments and not entire specimen.[5] Archie died soon after capture and was immediately frozen in a tank in the Natural History Museum while her custom tank was constructed.[4] While frozen, DNA tests were conducted to furthermore confirm Archie as an Architeuthis dux.[citation needed] Museum curator John Ablett organized her preservation and storage in 2004.[3]
When defrosting Archie, it "was a vigorous regime of keeping the tentacles frozen with ice packs while hosing down the mantle area".[6] It took around 3 days to fully defrost it, before being injected with formol-saline.
Archie's custom tank was designed by the same designers who created preservation tanks for Damien Hirst's works.[2]
It was put on display on 1 March 2006 at the Darwin Centre.
References
[edit]- ↑ Jha, Alok (2006-03-01). "Giant sea creature goes on display". the Guardian. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
- 1 2 3 4 "BBC Radio 4 - Natural Histories, Giant Squid, Archie the female giant squid". BBC. 2015-06-19. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
- 1 2 3 "Searching for more giant squid clues". Archived from the original on 2024-06-23. Retrieved 2026-04-21.
- 1 2 "Archie the Giant Squid". Atlas Obscura. 2013-02-11. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
- 1 2 3 "Giant squid: from the deep sea to display". Natural History Museum. 2015-06-22. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
- ↑ "Archie The Giant Squid". Archie The Giant Squid. 2006-04-23. Retrieved 2025-08-08.
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