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By: Robbie Coleman
Date: 16th Jul 08
Ambience: Indoor
Difficulty: Won't hurt a bit
What:
Giant squid dissection
Where:
Melbourne Museum, Carlton Gardens
When:
Thurs July 17, 11.30am-1pm
How much:
Museum entry adult $6 / concession free
Remember science class in fifth period? Rushing to your desk after snatching a half-price hot food special, and discovering the surprisingly pukeadelic implications of sausage roll and frog intestines.
Think on a larger scale; 245 kilos of squid - only 30 kilos lighter than the largest giant squid ever found - being attacked (presumably with some sort of giant saw) by scientists. Undertaking a dissection in a public forum for the first time tomorrow, the Melbourne Museum staff will use video cameras and audio links to explain the squid quartering process to a squirming audience, while providing some insight into these little-known creatures.
For those who have bigger fish to fry, the dissection will be streamed live on the museum website. The 12-metre long beauty (not for long people, not for long) caught in June near Portland will contribute to the musuem's Marine Life: Exploring our Seas exhibition. Life and death. Puke and pathos. The squid and the pale.