Archie (squid)
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Archie the squid is an 8 metre long giant squid taken alive by fishermen after becoming entangled in a fishing net near the Falkland Islands. Although Archie perished soon after capture, the body was put in ice immediately, allowing an unusually high standard of preservation. Although not the largest giant squid ever recorded, Archie's body is certainly the best preserved. Archie's eyes are missing but he or she is otherwise largely intact, including the skin, mantle, and the two long feeding tentacles. The original pinkish coloration of the skin has faded somewhat since capture.
Archie is now kept in the Darwin Centre, an annex of the Natural History Museum in London. Archie is preserved in a long reinforced UV resistant glass tank containing formaldehyde and saline solution. Visitors to the Darwin centre may book a tour in which they have the opportunity to see part of the spirit collection of the Natural History Museum. Since Archie has become part of this tour, tours have become fully booked up to a month in advance. Archie is kept in the large specimen room along with other samples of mainly fish and reptiles preserved in larger glass jars or steel tanks.
The Darwin Centre tries to offer scientists around the world the opportunity to use Archie in their research, but any procedures which involve dissection have been discouraged in an effort to preserve Archie's unique corporeal integrity. One consequence of this is that Archie's gender is as yet unknown.
The nickname of Archie comes from the scientific name of the species it belongs to, which is Architeuthis dux.
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