More dead jumbo squid are washing up along Orange County's coastline, and although that's bad news for the creatures, it's good news for scientists eager to learn more about the mysterious deep-sea dwellers.
"This is a scientific opportunity because we can get an endless amount of information from the samples we're collecting," said Eric Hochberg, curator of invertebrate zoology with the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.
The Humboldt squids' diet, where they spawn and the mechanisms of their beaks -- yes, they have beaks, much like parrots -- are but a fraction of the knowledge scientists hope to gain by studying the mollusks, he said. And then there is the nagging question of their unexpected appearance onshore.
Hochberg, like other scientists in the state, has relied on squid samples from Orange County for research and education.
The Ocean Institute in Dana Point has been an important point of data collection in the region, shipping specimens to Hochberg and Stanford University.
This week, the institute dissected a Humboldt squid, or Dosidicus gigas, and prepared samples for shipment.
The specimen -- a 5-foot-long, 15-pound female -- was filled with parasites and sand.
"We still don't know what's killing them," said Linda Blanchard, the Ocean Institute's lab director. "All we have right now are theories."
Blanchard, who has dissected more than a dozen of the creatures, said research on jumbo squid has intensified in California since the first mass stranding began in 1998. Those were attributed to El Nino storms.
"Before the squid were found dead on the beaches in the quantities that they have, we weren't studying them as hard as we are now," she said. This is the first year, however, that the Ocean Institute has shared specimens with the two other research facilities.
Her latest sample collection was spurred by a recent wave of jumbo squid that washed up on beaches between Dana Point and San Clemente.
More than 100 of the dead squid, she said, have been spotted since Sunday.
Scientists speculate that the squid are migrating north from Mexico and south from Peru to Chile to follow their food sources.
Squid normally live and hunt 3,000 feet below the water's surface.
Hochberg said an overactive fishing industry in Mexico may be depleting the Humboldt squid's diet, causing the creatures to migrate north.
