NAMES

As the oceans of the world cooled, creatures from the polar seas and the cooler waters below made their moves. The oceans having fared so much better than the land, many intrepid explorations resulted in failure, as the natives of the warmer areas rebounded and pushed back. Though the temperature dealt its damage and the acidified oceans and temporary bouts of anoxia took their turns, faunal overturn still paled in comparison to that on land. But even in the cases where normality reigns supreme, stability takes time, and in the intervening periods something strange may flourish.

The disappearance of most large predators, including all but the smallest of toothed whales, provided for some an unusual opportunity. There were a handful of sizeable survivors belonging to various groups, but the most peculiar was the colossal squid. The colossal squid (Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni) had inhabited the deeper waters in and around the Antarctic Ocean. A very poorly known animal, this giant cephalopod only rarely ventured near the surface, staying in the bathypelagic or occasionally mesopelagic zones as adults, living in near darkness. As young, however, they did frequent the surface. When fully grown, their name becomes very apparent: From washed-up remains and beaks in whale stomachs, weights of 495 kg and lengths of 7.5 m are achievable. However, because they are so poorly known, it is possible they got even larger, at much as 700 kg and 14 meters long! These enormous creatures were nearly apex predators as adults –  nearly, that is, for sperm whales could still eat them at this size, weighing several dozen times more. Colossal squids are at first glance similar to giant squids, their distant relatives and with whom they share a semi-active, semi-ambush predatory tactic. However, the colossal squid has adaptations all its own. They are more active than giant squid as evidenced by their binocular vision, and the ammonia that gives them buoyancy is stored in a specialized chamber rather than spread throughout the body. Colossal squid are larger and more heavily built, for they aren't satisfied with just small catches. Colossal squid can eat big prey, having a taste for Atlantic and Patagonian toothfish, which can get longer and heavier than a man. To this end they are heavily built, shorter but much heavier than giant squids, and have arms studded with jagged suckers and three-pronged hooks to grip and tear into prey. Their tentacles, long and extensible and used for quickly seizing targets, end in clubs that also sport large hooks. However, these are in sockets and can rotate with the prey, maintaining grip as it struggles. To spot prey in the darkness, their eyes are the largest of any animal, extinct or otherwise: at least 27 cm wide, larger than a soccer ball.

These abyssal giants turned their record-holding eyes toward the surface when the oceans cooled and their populations recovered, spreading through both hemispheres. They found the oceans full of suitable fish to eat and empty of the massive whales that troubled them. Settling into their new niche, the world began to change, and they did, too.

Now, distributed widely in the Pacific and occasionally the Atlantic as well, the Non-Abyssal Macropredatory Eldritch squid (NAME squid, also NAMES) prowls the open sea. It deserves its strange moniker, for it is a strange beast. It drifts through the water, though can dart unexpectedly fast thanks to its oversized siphon and muscular fins, and has skin varying between dark maroon to near white at will. Most notably, it is an utterly massive mollusk – indeed, the largest that ever lived – weighing on average 1,900 kg (4,190 lb) and stretching 9.5 m (31 ft 2 in) end to end. This makes it heavier than a beluga whale and longer than an orca. It enjoys what the colossal squid could never quite achieve: It is an apex predator. 

NAMES have refined their ancestors' ability to hunt relatively large prey, now consuming big animals and nothing else. They reside in the mid-to-upper mesopelagic, sometimes higher, where the light isn't so dim. This light has made its eyes slightly smaller proportionally than those of its ancestor, though they have nonetheless pushed the all-time record even further. Each globe is a staggering 40 cm (1 ft 4 in) in diameter, comparable to a watermelon. These monsters provide it a wide and detailed view of the waters around it, still dim enough to conceal the animal thanks to its chromatophores. A tank of a squid, its arms are thick coils of muscle firmly attached to its bulky head. Its cartilaginous structures, along with its heavily crosslinked connective tissue which is characteristic of cephalopods, do heavy duty reinforcing its body.

Slowly drifting in the water column, barely moving a muscle, it stares with its great unblinking orbs. Having spotted a prey item, it approaches with speed, cutting through the water toward its prey. When within range, usually to the side of the target, the squid suddenly swings around and snaps its two feeding tentacles out. The NAME squid's hooks are much larger and more recurved than those of its ancestor, mounted on thick cables for tentacles, to keep a hold on its larger quarry. The tentacles retract, in theory pulling the prey in, but in reality bringing the squid and prey toward each other and into the range of the eight lengthened arms. These powerful arms have hooks so large that they might better be described as little curved sabers or horns, stabbing deep into the tissue for an unshakeable grip. With great control over the prey, keeping the thrashing animal from escaping or from using its own weapons against the squid, the NAME squid begins taking bites with its great beak.

The beak is a compromise of bite force and deep penetration, with some convergence toward that of the Humboldt squid. Its buccal mass can protrude its beak slightly, allowing the upper jaw to slice deep into flesh and shear it against the lower jaw. With its upper beak so modified for this purpose, however, it no longer makes a clean cut with the lower jaw, meaning the squid often has to tear its jaws out of its prey to make a complete bite. In this way, some of the work of consumption has been offloaded to the arms, rotating the prey as deep chunks of flesh are ripped out.

NAMES will tackle many large animals including bony fish and sharks, some of them approaching the weight of the squid. However, larger catches may prove too much to kill in one sitting; instead, the squid makes the initial grab and injures the prey, then releases it, following the animal until it is too weakened from blood loss to resist further, bleeding from innumerable deep penetrations.

When not interested in feeding, NAMES are gentle creatures, cruising past other animals in the watery expanse without a care. Curious, they may approach an unfamiliar creature in the water, such a misplaced bottom-feeding ray, and follow it closely for a while, often to the other animal's fright. Young are flighty and fast, for they live dangerous lives in the higher layers, eating whatever they can catch and always ready to dodge. They mellow out when they are about 1.5 m long and 60 kg (4 ft 11 in and 132 lb), settling into their adult habitat and specializing on large prey. Adults have no predators of their own; their greatest cause of mortality is the act of reproducing itself, which is fatal for females. After a male transfers his sperm - something he can do many times in his life, a rare but not unheard of trait among cephalopods - she will produce a phenomenal quantity of eggs, each only 2 mm long, but in number over 8 million. These young are released in the water to fend for themselves.

However, very rarely, an adult NAME squid may find itself in a mortal battle all too familiar: Locked in combat with a whale, arms wrapped around the thrashing, open-mouthed beast, the water filling with blood. It seems that time has not fully erased the struggle between these two archenemies. However, something is different about this encounter. For one, it is accidental. A toothed whale may mistake the squid for a meal when the squid drifts into its range; it is a squid, after all, and may appear just small enough to fit the whale's image of a prey item, all the while the squid is not anticipating a threat. Alternatively, a hungry squid may target the whale instead, especially if the target is young, driven by circumstance. Either way, the squid has something its kind have never had before in this fight: An upper edge. Indeed, while this doesn't happen nearly enough to assign one or the other the predator, and though it usually ends with both parties departing, when one party consumes the other, it is usually the squid with the full stomach.

Their days of glory, however, are numbered. Already there are large whales in their midst, and already they are beginning to think of the squids less as competition and more as calamari. Soon, it seems, the whales, guardians of the great sunny above from which they heed, will drive the abyssal monstrosities back into the dark depths. It is indeed so for the largest of them, but it is not over for their lineage. Even back during the reign of sperm whales, giant and colossal squid made up only a tiny portion of their diets, and were barely capable of recognizing their prey via sonar before the squids could recognize them via sight. Things are different now: In their brighter home and with their even larger eyes, NAMES can detect large animals 200 m (656 ft) away, much further than the whales' sonar. So while the NAMES themselves will soon be reminder of a time short but strange, their lineage, the tanksquids, have finally found a way around their ancient enemies.