Colossal squid
The largest recorded specimen was captured in 2007 by a New Zealand fishing boat off Antarctica. It was initially estimated to measure in length and weigh . The squid was taken back to New Zealand for scientific study. A study on the specimen later showed its actual weight was , but it only measured in total length as a result of the tentacles' shrinking "post mortem".
Cephalopod size
It is now accepted that the giant squid has a maximum mass of several hundred kilograms (O'Shea, 2003a; Roper & Jereb, 2010a:121), but the literature is rife with claims of much greater weights. Clarke (1966), for example, put the mass of the largest giant squid specimens at around (Alexander, 1998:1233). Similarly, Ellis (1998a:106) wrote: "Where [giant] squid carcasses have actually been weighed, it appears that the longest ones—in the 50-foot [] range, for example—weigh about a ton []." Much greater estimates of giant squid mass can be found in, for example, "Natural History of Marine Animals" by MacGinitie & MacGinitie (1949): "two arms of "Architeuthis" that were long were found, and if one reconstructed a body [...] the squid to which these arms belonged was in diameter and long, with an overall measurement of . It would have weighed about 42½ tons []." They added that a specimen, such as the one reported from Thimble Tickle, "would have weighed 29¼ or 30 tons [] including the tentacles—a truly noble animal, being a little more than one-fifth the weight of the largest whale and larger than the whale sharks and basking sharks, the largest of all fishes" (MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1949). Ellis (1998a:106) characterised these estimates as "unfounded exaggerations". In the revised edition of "Natural History of Marine Animals", published in 1968, the authors reduced their estimate to less than 8 tonnes (MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 1968; Wood, 1982:190).