Teuthowenia!!!

I was walking along Tomahawk beach at 10.30 am today and I was lucky to find a real (dead) Teuthowenia! It could be Teuthowenia, but it may also be one of the closely
related cranchiids (there's lot of them and they all look similar when
small). Ever since I saw Peter Batson's photo of this deep sea creature in his book Explore The Abyss it has captured my imagination. I wish I could make a film about this squid - quite impossible, but still it's fun to dream!
My snapshots are nothing compared to Peter's but I thought I'd have fun and show you how tiny this creature is: it is sitting in a mussel shell in the last picture. It fits into a tablespoon, and I shot it in a tranparent teacup. I was only able to manipulate it for a short while after the beach before it started to disintigrate, it's ink staining everything. It is such a fragile, beautiful little animal! One of the parts I like about it is the spots all over, like a tiny leopard. These only became very apparent when I moved it from salt water to tap water, usually it looks quite translucent. It shrank a bit when I put it into the tap water, like it was being pickled or something. Teuthowenia looks like a creature from another planet to me.