cephalopods
pharyngula | November 28, 2008Megaleledone setebos
(from Strugnell, JM, Rogers AD, Prodo PA, Collins MA, Allcock AL (2008) The thermohaline expressway: the Southern Ocean as a centre of
origin for deep-sea octopuses. Cladistics 24:1-8)
pharyngula | November 25, 2008How odd — lots of people are sending me links to this video of a spindly-armed squid drifting through an oil-drilling site, but I'm pretty sure I posted this same video last year. I guess National Geographic just acquired rights to the footage.
It's still a spectacular animal. And if that's not enough, here's a whole page of short clips of these Magnapinna squid in action.
pharyngula | November 17, 2008
Christine Huffard sent me a note alerting me to the publication of her latest paper, and she thought I might be interested because I "seem to like cephalopods". Hah. Well. I've noticed that Dr Huffard seems to have some small affection for the tentacled beasties herself.
The paper follows on an old tradition and an old problem. While people have no problem distinguishing human individuals, we have a tough time telling one individual animal from another. This perceptual difficulty complicates problems of studying variations in behavior or physiology, or monitoring numbers and behavior, in…
edyong | November 16, 2008
Many naturalists become so familiar with the animals they study that they can recognise individuals within a population using just their shapes and patterns. If that's too difficult, animals can be ringed or tagged. These tricks give scientists the invaluable ability to track the fates of individuals, but try using them on octopuses.
Recognising shape and pattern is impossible when your subject has the ability to change the texture and colour of its already pliant body on a whim. Injured individuals are distinctive enough, but only for a short while before their remarkable healing abilities…
edyong | November 9, 2008I'm an immensely big fan of cephalopods (octopus, squid and cuttlefish) and Sydney Aquarium gave me a really good ceph-fix.
This squid was a highlight of the trip. It was hauntingly beautiful, exuding both grace and intelligence. Anyone care to take a stab at the species?
Common octopus
pharyngula | November 7, 2008Sepioteuthis australis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | November 1, 2008This is my kind of beast. Otto the octopus of the Sea Star aquarium in Coburg likes to cause trouble.
"We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out a the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water."
…
"Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better - much to the distress…
pharyngula | October 31, 2008I'm suspicious. There may be cephalopod imposters lurking about today.
Xavia
pharyngula | October 24, 2008Sepia apama
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | October 20, 2008At first, I was a bit disappointed in this result, but then I realized it's actually rather interesting in a negative sense. Investigators tested the effects of squid ink on other squid; the entirely reasonable idea being that it could contain an alarm pheromone that would have the function of alerting neighboring squid in the school of trouble. It works — adding ink to a tank of Caribbean reef squid sends them scurrying away.
However, when they removed the pigments from the ink and added that, the squid couldn't care less. That says there is no chemical signal, only a visual signal.
That…
pharyngula | October 16, 2008Sepia apama
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | October 16, 2008An artist, William Hessian, has hidden 35 miniature artworks portraying the octopus in public parks around Minneapolis. Your job: find them! It's getting cold, too, so you might want to do it before the first snowfall.
pharyngula | October 10, 2008Sepioteuthis australis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | October 8, 2008Octopus vulgaris
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | October 8, 2008
It is the 8th day of the 10th month, and you all know what that means: it is International Cephalopod Appreciation Day.
There will be a Wednesday Cephalopod at some time today.
pharyngula | October 3, 2008Sepia latimanus and Homo sapiens
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
edyong | September 29, 2008
Two strangers are having a normal conversation in the middle of a large crowd. No one else can see them. No one else can listen in. Thanks to advanced gadgetry, they are talking in coded messages that only they can decipher. These invisible conversationalists sound like they've walked out of a Bond film. But they are entirely real, and their skill at secrecy is biological, not technological. They are squid.
Squid and their relatives, the octopus and cuttlefish, are masters of concealment. They have the most sophisticated camouflage abilities in the animal kingdom and use them to avoid…