How long does gargantuan last

All of the details of Gargantua's life befit a giant. He rides a colossal mare whose tail switches so violently that it fells the entire forest of Orleans. He has an enormous appetite - in one memorable incident, he inadvertently swallows five pilgrims while eating a salad.

The scale of everything connected with Gargantua gave rise to the adjective "gargantuan," which since Shakespeare's time has been used of anything of tremendous size or volume. These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'gargantuan. Send us feedback. See more words from the same year. Accessed 12 Nov. More Definitions for gargantuan. See the full definition for gargantuan in the English Language Learners Dictionary.

Nglish: Translation of gargantuan for Spanish Speakers. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Log in Sign Up. Save Word. VKC is a chronic condition and usually affects those between the ages of Usually, your symptoms will come and go based on seasonal allergies.

The most common cause of secondary giant papillary conjunctivitis is the use of contact lenses. More specifically with the use of soft contact lenses.

If you wear soft contact lenses, you are 10 times more likely to develop GPC when compared to those who wear hard contacts. The reason for this increase may be because allergens are more likely to stick to soft lenses than hard lenses.

There are approximately 12 million people who wear contact lenses. Out of them, 1 to 5 percent will develop GPC at some point. Contact lenses are considered prosthetic devices. Other eye or ocular prostheses can cause GPC, as well as any exposed stitches you may have from an eye injury or procedure. Also, certain contact lens solutions can play a role in causing GPC. If your GPC is caused by wearing soft contact lenses, the quickest way to treat the condition is to switch to wearing eyeglasses or hard contact lenses instead of soft contacts.

Some people may also be able to manage or eliminate GPC by switching between contacts and eyeglasses. Alternating can give the eye time to rest and reduce the irritation caused by the soft contacts.

However, there are other methods and types of treatment for giant papillary conjunctivitis. Education on proper care, treatment, and cleansing of your contact lenses may help to treat your GPC.

Proper lens cleaning tips include:. You can change the type or design of your lenses to help lower or remove your risk. You can do this by wearing daily disposable contact lenses or by using rigid gas-permeable RGP lenses instead of soft lenses.

Then, once your symptoms clear up and you wait an additional five days, you may be able to resume wearing your contacts. In some cases, cromolyn sodium drops may be prescribed to apply while wearing your contacts. The preferred treatment for primary GPC is cromolyn sodium and lodoxamide. Other treatment options for both types of primary GPC include:. If left untreated, giant papillary conjunctivitis can cause damage to the eye. Sometimes their tentacles or arms have fallen off, or have been eaten by other animals while afloat in the ocean.

On the other hand, when they wash ashore, the squids can be bloated with water, appearing bigger than they really are. Because tentacles and arms fall off or, alternatively, can be stretched out, scientists often use mantle length as the best measure of a squid's actual size.

The longest mantle length on record is 7. A new method for figuring out how big a squid can get includes using beak size to estimate total body length, a helpful tool considering the hard beaks are often found in the stomachs of sperm whales. Based on this new method scientists believe the giant squid could reach lengths up to 66 feet 20 meters long, making it potentially larger than the colossal squid, however, a real-life squid of this size has never been documented.

But does a big giant squid necessarily mean a strong one? If they were proportionally as strong as their smaller cousins, the Humboldt squid Dosidicus gigas , giant squid would be VERY strong, says Smithsonian squid expert Clyde Roper. However, that doesn't make them sluggish weaklings.

They have thousands of suckers working in unison on eight arms and two tentacles, with a rapidly-contracting mantle, to help capture and kill prey. The giant squid is not just a single species -- or is it?

Some researchers think there are as many as 8 species in the genus Architeuthis Greek for "chief squid" , each a different kind of giant squid. But other researchers think there is just one Architeuthis that swims in the world's ocean. There is no consensus because the squid are so hard to track and there are so few specimens available for study.

However, it is certain that Architeuthis has an abundance of evolutionary relatives. The ocean holds an estimated species of squid—and almost all of those are in the same taxonomic order as the giant squid, called Oegopsina. Some are surprisingly tiny—only about 1 inch 2. Others are impressively large, including the colossal squid Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni , which can grow to be even bigger than the giant squid, reaching 45 feet 14 meters. These squid species are closely related to snails, clams, and even slugs: they are all mollusks , which are defined by their soft bodies.

Some of these soft bodies are encased in hard shells, such as clams and snails, but not the squids. Squids belong to a particularly successful group of mollusks called the cephalopods , which have been around for about million years. Some ancestors of modern-day squids had shells, such as the ammonites , which ruled the waves million years ago. Of those that are still around, one small group—the nautiluses—has an external shell. The other—which includes squids, cuttlefishes, and octopods—does not, although squids and cuttlefishes have an internal, backbone-like support made of chitin called a pen.

Shell or no shell, all cephalopods have well-developed brains and are very active, jet-propelling themselves through the ocean. Most have ink sacs. And many can change skin color and texture in the blink of an eye.

Giant squid are thought to swim in the ocean worldwide, based on the beaches they've washed upon, as shown in the map via Wikimedia Commons. However, they're rarely found in tropical and polar areas. They commonly wash up on the shores of New Zealand and Pacific islands, make frequent appearances on the east and west sides of the Northern Atlantic, and the South Atlantic along the southern coast of Africa.

How long does it take to grow so big? Unlike mammals, including people, and many fish species, cephalopods grow very quickly and die after a short life. Evidence from statoliths a small mineralized mass that helps squid balance , which accumulate "growth rings" and can be used to measure age, suggests that giant squid live no more than five years -- which means each squid must grow incredibly quickly to reach 30 feet in just a few years!

To grow at such a rate, giant squid must live in areas of the ocean where there is an abundant supply of food to provide enough energy. Smaller than the head of a pin, this arrow squid Doryteuthis plei embryo looks like a miniature adult and is almost ready to hatch! Depending on the squid species, the development from a fertilized egg to a nearly-hatched larva can take one or several weeks. Talk about pressure! Giant squid males don't use a modified arm hectocotylus to transfer sperm like most squid; instead, the spermatophore sperm packet is expelled from a penis, which sticks out through the funnel and can be as long as the animal's mantle, up to 7 feet long.

Once the male finds a female -- whether it happens by chance or by following a chemical signal is unknown -- the male injects sperm packets directly into the female's arms. The rest of the story from here is mostly guesswork. The sperm could travel through her arms to fertilize the eggs internally. But researchers suspect that the arm-shot of spermatophores triggers the female squid's ovaries to release eggs bound together with jelly, which she holds in her arms. Then the sperm sense the eggs nearby and migrate in that direction to fertilize the eggs.

Females then release millions of tiny, transparent fertilized eggs into the water in a jellied clump called an egg mass. Most are quickly snatched up as food by other marine animals. But a few survive -- and within a few years, they become giant marine predators. Hunting in the deep dark ocean isn't easy, but these cephalopods have adapted to their environment. In addition to their foot-wide eyes, which help them to absorb as much light as possible to glimpse prey, they also have long feeding tentacles.

These tentacles are more than twice their body length, and the squids can shoot out to long distances like a net. This allows these big, comparatively conspicuous squids to sneak up and catch prey. But what do giant squids eat? Although scientists have not witnessed a giant squid feeding, they have cut open the stomachs of squids washed up on beaches to see what they had eaten recently.

Giant squid mostly eat deep water fishes and other squids—including other giant squids.