Hell to the no. As evidenced by this video shot off the coast of West Africa, a large squid wrapped his tentacles around a guy’s paddleboard.
The paddleboarder, a man named James Taylor, discovered the ailing squid while “walking down the beach for a paddle,” he told Earth Touch.
“I thought it was a big piece of kelp, then I thought it was a piece of plastic, but that also didn’t look right. It was only when I got closer that I saw it was a squid of some sort.”
Once he got into the water, he realized enormous sea creature was sick. He noticed it was not only lethargic but missing tentacles and covered in bite marks. He says, “I wanted to try get it to the beach for research purposes before it got more damaged by seals in the area.”
As you’ll see in the footage, he does get it to shore. At around the 2:09 mark, it’s obvious the squid has died. That’s when Taylor gets help dragging it to the beach. At the end of the video, the beast is shown ejaculating spermatophores, packets of sperm and protein, leading some to believe it died during “violent sex.”
Mike Vecchione, a research zoologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History believes the animal is a giant squid (genus Architeuthis), not a Humboldt squid as some have claimed, stating, “The footage on the beach looks like a giant squid to me.”
Whatever the poor thing is and however it died, I’m going to be having nightmares for weeks.
(reddit)