Collossal SquidTe Papa, the nat­ur­al his­tory museum of New Zea­l­and, is now hous­ing the Colossal Squid.

That’s right, it’s a COLOSSAL SQUID. Squidz­illa! Squid-Ra!

It’s become quite a draw card, so of course the Wel­ling­tonista had to check it out.

The Colossal Squid

This lady-squid is housed in a pur­pose-built tank. Some may find it awe-inspir­ing, oth­ers may find it revolt­ing. The squid has a sort of pinky out­er lay­er of squid­skin which is peel­ing off.

Did you know that squids have a beak like a par­rot. Uuggh!

3D AV Squidtacu­lar

Off to the side is a theatrette show­ing a com­puter anim­a­tion of how the squid was acci­dent­ally caught by a fish­ing boat. I know what you’re think­ing: “Bor­ing, grandma! I am gen­er­a­tion Y or even Z! I don’t use vow­els, I have a two second atten­tion span, carry three cell­phones and can­’t watch a bor­ing old 5 minute video about a squid!”

Well, for­tu­nately Te Papa have taken care of this and made the video in 3D. Yes, so you get to strap on a pair of glasses and watch the Colossal Squid being cap­tured by a fish­ing boat in 3D. In threeeee-deeeee!

Whoa! Trippy as, man. Etc.

The Oth­er Video

Miss PopularityStrangely enough, when I was there the part of the exhib­it that got the most atten­tion was the video doc­u­ment­ary about the story of the squid, from cap­ture to defrost­ing to Te Papa.

A large group of people gathered around it to watch the work­place-safety-style nar­rat­or enthu­si­ast­ic­ally tell us how the team were dis­ap­poin­ted to dis­cov­er that the squid was a lady and not a gen­tle­man. Bloody sex­ist sci­ent­ists.

So, it is worth a vis­it?

Well, the Colossal Squid will bring out your inner 5‑year-old boy, much like the truck­ers’ street protest did earli­er in the year.

One thing’s for sure: you are guar­an­teed to hear at least one dad hil­ari­ously joke, “You’d get a few squid rings out of that!”