But it certainly was a very special squid cube, comprising the carefully pleated body of an entire giant squid, meaning a species of deep-sea squid in the family Architeuthidae.
But this giant squid, a young female, was just small enough to fit inside the fish bin and become a cube of her own.
About twice a year, Bolstad’s lab sojourns to Wellington to thaw squid cubes and other squidsicles (frozen squids that bear somewhat less resemblance to regular geometric shapes).Although a single, finger-sized squid might defrost in a half-hour, larger squids can take an entire day.
And a squid compacted into a cube also does not defrost evenly, running the risk that the outside of the cube could rot while the inside is still frozen solid.
A few years ago, Bolstad had to thaw a squid cube of a colossal squid—a different species altogether, and the largest invertebrate on the planet—weighing more than a thousand pounds.
Colossal squid tissue is more delicate than giant squid tissue, so Bolstad’s team defrosted that colossal cube in a bath of sea ice to keep the dead squid in relatively pristine condition.
Still, it’s rare to come across a giant squid that has yet to reach full size, Bolstad said.“It’s very difficult to cut into a frozen giant squid head,” Bolstad said.
Although the squid cube was perhaps the grandest squid of the frozen bunch, Bolstad’s lab thawed another significantly-sized squidsicle that turned out to be the head and arms of a truly big giant squid.