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PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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« Luskin's foolish credentialism | Main | She does look like she's having fun »
Category: Cephalopods • Organisms • Science
Posted on: September 16, 2006 6:00 AM, by PZ Myers
Whoa…watch this phenomenal video of the Vampire Squid. They've caught it feeding and using a few sneaky tricks to escape predators.
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Comments
A very impressive creature, I love all the cool new things they find in the deep.
I question one of their theories though. By closing it's light emiting organs they claimed it could look like it had fled, but for me watching that, it looked like it was closing it's eyes, not fleeing. For it to look like fleeing to me, it would also have to move the lights closer to each other at the same time as shrinking them.
Maybe it is confusing enough to predators as is though, and I'm reading too much into it.
Posted by: Martin C | September 16, 2006 9:26 AM
Why is it, that right next to the squid video, I get an advertisement about whether she's sexually compatible for me? Do I get that specifically because I'm viewing a squid video with you as the referrer?
Posted by: Scooter | September 16, 2006 9:32 AM
I noticed the narration referring to it as a "living fossil" at least twice. Not really an accurate term since the species has not really "frozen", but has continued to adapt. I presume the reference is really to how far back the genus joins our line of descent, and wish that a more accurate term was developed.
- Kurt
Posted by: Kurt | September 16, 2006 9:46 AM
That was remarkable photography, but the foreboding music is extremely dopey. Gah.
Posted by: wren dishon | September 16, 2006 10:00 AM
The part where it's feeding and eluding a predator with the eye trick are computer simulations, though.
Posted by: beth | September 16, 2006 11:19 AM
Great video, awful narration and soundtrack.
Posted by: tacitus | September 16, 2006 11:55 AM
One wonders how much they're pushing the theories beyond any data: it smells as if they were desparately trying to create a story out of almost nothing.
Sorry to be sceptical, but I don't want to make Dr. Free-Rides's puppy unhappy. And it is very cute.
Bob
Posted by: Bob O'H | September 16, 2006 12:53 PM
Cool, but what are those stringy filament things?
Posted by: TAW | September 16, 2006 4:32 PM
Cool video, but the narrator makes a couple of mistakes - for example, the Abyss is NOT considered an oxygen-poor environment. Oxygen concentrations in the water are pretty constant all the way down in the ocean, due to global circulation patterns.
Posted by: TheBrummell | September 16, 2006 7:09 PM
The stringy filament things are the "Valar filaments", highly derived arms (not the same ones as squid habve modified). They're probably used to detect prey as shown in the computer simulation.
The bit avout it being a loving fossil annoyed me- Vampyroteuthis itself doesn't have a fossil record, and the fossil cephalopods currently considered to be its relatives- Plesioteuthis and Trachyteuthis for instance don't look anything much like Vampyroteuthis.
But it was pretty.
Posted by: David Godfrey | September 16, 2006 8:47 PM
The "living fossil" part is probably in reference the the idea that the vampire squid is largely unchanged from before the time squid and octopus differentiated.
And the "oxygen-poor environment" isn't accurate for the entire abyss, but it is accurate for the vampire squid's habitat (600m-800m), which is within the oxygen minimum layer (call it 500m-1000m).
There's another vampire squid posting on the old site too:
http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/comments/friday_squidblogging_vampire_squid/
Posted by: TomS | September 18, 2006 10:45 AM
Here is a report on some new fish and a coral species found off New Guinea.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14834763/
Besides the slide show, scroll down to the video of the shark.
Posted by: bernarda | September 19, 2006 5:13 AM
It's is the most metal animal...ever
Posted by: Nathan Explosion | March 26, 2007 1:34 AM