Museo del Calamar Gigante

About

Museo del Calamar Gigante (Spanish pronunciation: [muˈseo ðel kalaˈmaɾ xiˈɣante]; lit. 'Giant Squid Museum') is a natural history museum located in Luarca, Asturias, Spain. The original museum, opened in 2010, was administered by the marine conservation group CEPESMA and held the association's cephalopod collections together with other marine exhibits. It was described as the only museum in the world dedicated to the giant squid (Architeuthis dux) and held one of the world's most important collections of large cephalopods, including the largest collection of giant squid on public display. Opened in August 2010, the museum was badly damaged by a storm in November of the same year and largely destroyed by another storm in February 2014. As the museum had been a major tourist attraction and an important contributor to Luarca's economy, there was strong local support for its reconstruction or relocation. After several years without progress, two proposals for relocation—first to an adjacent warehouse and later to a former cinema—were put forward and then abandoned, before the local government settled on a plan to move the museum to a former nightclub. It reopened on 15 July 2022.

From the latter half of the 20th century and continuing into the early 21st century, Asturias has been a global hotspot for giant squid specimens, contributing a significant fraction of all recorded individuals worldwide. Of the c. 650 specimens recorded globally as of 2012, 50 were documented in Asturian waters since 1956, or around one specimen per year. They are known locally as peludines owing to the typical "peeled" appearance of specimens that have partially lost their delicate reddish skin.

The animals received little attention from the scientific community in Asturias, and Spain more generally, until local naturalist Luis Laria drew attention to them, beginning in the mid-1990s. This marked the start of a long-term collaboration between Laria and cephalopod experts Ángel Guerra and Ángel F. González of CSIC 's Instituto de Investigacións Mariñas in Vigo, Galicia, who had previously examined only giant squid specimens from Namibia and South Africa. The first joint dissection was carried out in Luarca in the winter of 1995, on an immature female from the Cantabrian coast weighing 104 kg (229 lb).

In 1996 Laria founded the environmental conservation organisation CEPESMA, with the aim of protecting marine ecosystems and promoting environmental education. It is through CEPESMA that much of the subsequent work on giant squid in the Asturian region was conducted. By July 2005, CEPESMA had handled 22 giant squid, and by 2009 this number had risen to around 30 collected specimens, of which they had preserved around 20; that year the group received their first specimen with intact eyes. By 2013, 27 giant squid specimens had been examined by the team. During this time they developed novel taxidermy methods to better preserve and display giant squid, which involved emptying the mantle of its internal organs and replacing them with a semi-rigid structure constructed from fishing nets, before submerging the whole specimen in a formaldehyde solution.

Giant squid specimens from CEPESMA were loaned to a number of institutions around the world, including a male and a female to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., United States (for € 50,000; equivalent to US$ 73,540 in 2025), and another specimen to Biarritz Aquarium in Biarritz, France.

The frequency of records from the Carrandi fishing grounds off Asturias has been attributed to a confluence of factors, including the presence of three extensive submarine canyons near the coast; the local abundance of the giant squid's favoured prey, blue whiting ( Micromesistius poutassou ); the intensity of the fishing effort in the area; the tendency of local fishermen to report specimens; and the work of CEPESMA in recording and securing specimens. Geophysical prospecting employing air-gun arrays has also been implicated in several mass stranding events. The local abundance of specimens spurred an ultimately unsuccessful 2001–2002 effort to film the giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time, dubbed Proyecto Kraken ("Project Kraken"). On 7 October 2016, a live adult giant squid was photographed swimming off neighbouring Galicia, marking the first time this had been achieved outside of Japanese waters.

From the latter half of the 20th century and continuing into the early 21st century, Asturias has been a global hotspot for giant squid specimens, contributing a significant fraction of all recorded individuals worldwide. Of the c. 650 specimens recorded globally as of 2012, 50 were documented in Asturian waters since 1956, or around one specimen per year. They are known locally as peludines owing to the typical "peeled" appearance of specimens that have partially lost their delicate reddish skin.

The animals received little attention from the scientific community in Asturias, and Spain more generally, until local naturalist Luis Laria drew attention to them, beginning in the mid-1990s. This marked the start of a long-term collaboration between Laria and cephalopod experts Ángel Guerra and Ángel F. González of CSIC 's Instituto de Investigacións Mariñas in Vigo, Galicia, who had previously examined only giant squid specimens from Namibia and South Africa. The first joint dissection was carried out in Luarca in the winter of 1995, on an immature female from the Cantabrian coast weighing 104 kg (229 lb).

In 1996 Laria founded the environmental conservation organisation CEPESMA, with the aim of protecting marine ecosystems and promoting environmental education. It is through CEPESMA that much of the subsequent work on giant squid in the Asturian region was conducted. By July 2005, CEPESMA had handled 22 giant squid, and by 2009 this number had risen to around 30 collected specimens, of which they had preserved around 20; that year the group received their first specimen with intact eyes. By 2013, 27 giant squid specimens had been examined by the team. During this time they developed novel taxidermy methods to better preserve and display giant squid, which involved emptying the mantle of its internal organs and replacing them with a semi-rigid structure constructed from fishing nets, before submerging the whole specimen in a formaldehyde solution.

Giant squid specimens from CEPESMA were loaned to a number of institutions around the world, including a male and a female to the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., United States (for € 50,000; equivalent to US$ 73,540 in 2025), and another specimen to Biarritz Aquarium in Biarritz, France.

The frequency of records from the Carrandi fishing grounds off Asturias has been attributed to a confluence of factors, including the presence of three extensive submarine canyons near the coast; the local abundance of the giant squid's favoured prey, blue whiting ( Micromesistius poutassou ); the intensity of the fishing effort in the area; the tendency of local fishermen to report specimens; and the work of CEPESMA in recording and securing specimens. Geophysical prospecting employing air-gun arrays has also been implicated in several mass stranding events. The local abundance of specimens spurred an ultimately unsuccessful 2001–2002 effort to film the giant squid in its natural habitat for the first time, dubbed Proyecto Kraken ("Project Kraken"). On 7 October 2016, a live adult giant squid was photographed swimming off neighbouring Galicia, marking the first time this had been achieved outside of Japanese waters.

The giant squid collection that would form the core of Museo del Calamar Gigante began with the arrival of the first specimen in Luarca in 1997. The embryonic collection was originally exhibited at the Padre Galo public school ( Colegio Público Padre Galo ) in the centre of Luarca from early 1998. In November 2002, the growing collection was transferred, with financial help from the Principality of Asturias, to Luarca's Villar youth hostel, where 600 square metres (6,500 sq ft) was made available. It remained there until forced to close on 7 January 2008 due to the poor state of the building and its supposedly imminent demolition. It was subsequently moved to a 160-square-metre (1,700 sq ft) warehouse of Luarca station [ es ], loaned by national railway operator FEVE. The giant squid collection was to be publicly displayed there until the construction of the new museum in Luarca port, but these plans were scuppered by humidity problems in the warehouse. In the end, only the 16 schools that had previously arranged visits were shown the collection at this temporary venue. Luis Laria stated that the warehouse "does not meet the minimum conditions [...] it would not be dignified to charge entrance to a visitor on whom the paintwork will fall" (" no cumple las mínimas condiciones [...] no sería digno cobrar la entrada a un visitante al que se le caerá la pintura encima "). Laria also criticised the forced move from Villar youth hostel, which at that point (May 2008) was still standing.

Throughout this time the giant squid collection formed part of a wider exhibit known as Aula del Mar ("Classroom of the Sea"), which also encompassed items related to climate change, cetaceans, turtles, crustaceans, and molluscs. It received around 4000 school children per year. Of the total collection, which occupied some 1,200 square metres (13,000 sq ft), around 30% would go on to be exhibited at Museo del Calamar Gigante.

In 2005 the Principality of Asturias committed €300,500 (equivalent to US$373,852 in 2025) towards the relocation of Aula del Mar. As a major local tourist attraction, Valdés mayor Juan Fernández Pereiro advocated for the new exhibition to be located in the centre of Luarca where it would receive more visitors. The first proposal called for part of the fishermen's warehouses (formerly a cannery ) at the end of Luarca dock to be set aside for the exhibition, but this was rejected by the owners, and a proposal to construct the museum as an annex to the existing warehouses was taken forward instead.

Detailed plans for Museo del Calamar Gigante were released in May 2007, with works set to start in July. At the time, Vicente Álvarez Areces, the President of the Principality of Asturias, said that the museum would be "an international reference center for the exhibition and dissemination of cephalopods" (" un centro de referencia internacional de exposición y divulgación de cefalópodos "). At its new location it was expected to double the 30,000 visitors to Aula del Mar in 2006. In October 2007 Areces announced that Museo del Calamar Gigante would open in 2009. Work would involve stabilising the slope adjacent to the museum site.

- CEPESMA specimens exhibited in Luarca in September 2009, prior to the opening of Museo del Calamar Gigante

After some delays, the museum opened its doors to the public on 13 August 2010, with an official inauguration taking place in September. It was visited by 14,000 people in the first three months.

The museum building, which had 908.75 square metres (9,781.7 sq ft) of floorspace and a 66.25-square-metre (713.1 sq ft) patio, was built at a cost of €1,260,000 (equivalent to US$1,670,382 in 2025), financed by the Principality of Asturias. The Asturian government contributed an additional €315,000 (equivalent to US$417,596 in 2025) through the Tourism Product Revitalisation Plan for Comarca Vaqueira ( Plan de Dinamización Producto Turístico "Comarca Vaqueira" ). The exterior was clad in grey quartzite at ground level and aluminium composite on the upper two floors. The rear of the building was attached to existing fishermen's warehouses. The building's location, at the end of Luarca port, left it highly exposed to the elements, and it had already suffered storm damage during its construction when a partition wall was washed away. Both construction and subsequent repairs were undertaken by the construction company Sardesa Española.

The collections were spread across three floors and included eleven giant squid ( Architeuthis dux ) specimens and three of Taningia danae, the Dana octopus squid, including a giant female weighing 124 kg (273 lb). The squid collection alone was valued at €2 million (equivalent to US$2,657,000 in 2025), with the individual giant squid specimens worth approximately €150,000 each (equivalent to US$199,275 in 2025). The specimens were preserved in an alcohol-based solution that CEPESMA had determined to be particularly conducive to long-term display with minimal deterioration.

November 2010 storm damage and reopening