cephalopods
pharyngula | August 3, 2007Macrotritopus larva
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | July 30, 2007
People are always arguing about whether primitive apes could have evolved into men, but that one seems obvious to me: of course they did! The resemblances are simply too close, so that questioning it always seems silly. One interesting and more difficult question is how oysters could be related to squid; one's a flat, sessile blob with a hard shell, and the other is a jet-propelled active predator with eyes and tentacles. Any family resemblance is almost completely lost in their long and divergent evolutionary history (although I do notice some unity of flavor among the various molluscs,…
pharyngula | July 27, 2007Dosidicus gigas, the Humboldt Squid
This is a still from a movie by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (31MB Quicktime). I've also edited down a slightly more bandwidth-friendly 4.6MB version that shows just the action at the time of the strike.
pharyngula | July 26, 2007This will not stand. It's a site called Octopus Faith, and it's a promotion for a Christian women's speaker, and her premise is analogizing faith to an octopus.
Every octopus is an atheist, though … they told me so personally. And they are not amused.
pharyngula | July 25, 2007
These stories about the Humboldt squid invasion off the California coast keep turning up — the latest from the San Jose Mercury News is broadly informative, and even cites a fresh new paper in PNAS. The work correlates the depth range of the squid with that of the Pacific hake, and also shows a rough correlation between the squid population and hake declines over a number of years. This suggests that maybe "invasion" isn't the right word anymore: the Humboldts are new California residents.
The present situation off central California appears to be that
a physiologically tolerant species with…
pharyngula | July 24, 2007In a disturbing story, a Korean man fishing for octopus brought several aboard that were clinging to some pottery shards, which led to the discovery of rare 12th century Korean bowls left on the sea floor by a shipwreck.
No word on whether the guardian cephalopods were going to receive a cut of the loot, or even whether they were given a reprieve from being served up for dinner.
pharyngula | July 14, 2007Gee, people seem to have slowed in sending me announcements, or it's a slow summer week, but I only have two carnivals to report: I and the Bird #53 (it's their second anniversary!) and Friday Ark #147.
I can also say that next week is time for the Tangled Bank, to be held at The Voltage Gate on 18 July. Send links to me or host@tangledbank.net.
Go below the fold to comment on anything you want, or to see the recent collection of cephalart (it's also been a while since I ran one of those.)
pharyngula | July 13, 2007Mastigoteuthis sp.
Since I recently pointed out the strange news reports of an "octosquid" that even went so far as to call it half squid/half octopus, I thought I'd show why the preliminary assignment to the genus Mastigoteuthis was suggestive. It probably did have 8 arms and 2 tentacles … before it got sucked up in a pipe and flung to the surface. Those two feeding tentacles are delicate.
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | July 11, 2007Usually, on my morning walk, I keep my eyes open for any squid that might have washed up on the sidewalks of Morris. Now I learn that the squid wash up on the beaches of Tasmania. I suppose a place nearer an ocean is a more likely spot. (By the way, TONMO is the site to check for more news on the beached squid carcass—and they think it is unlikely that it's actually a giant squid.)
Maybe I should start scanning for dead baby mammoths, instead.
pharyngula | July 6, 2007Euprymna tasmanica mating pair (male on the left)
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | July 6, 2007Euprymna tasmanica
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | July 5, 2007
A new squid has been caught near Hawaii — much is being made of the fact that it has eight arms instead of ten, but that doesn't seem like such a big deal to me, since we have the example of Taningia danae with a similar arrangement. It's more interesting that there is a preliminary assignment to the genus Mastigoteuthis, a curious and poorly understood group of cephalopods.
pharyngula | June 29, 2007Enteroctopus dofleini, the giant Pacific octopus
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | June 29, 2007removed at the request of Gary Larson
Figure from Bride of the Far Side(amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Gary Larson.
pharyngula | June 22, 2007Nautilus belauensis
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | June 15, 2007Octopus marginatus, in a coconut shell
And here it is, taking a walk while holding its shell with a few arms (good thing it has spares).
Figure from Cephalopods: A World Guide (amzn/b&n/abe/pwll), by Mark Norman.
pharyngula | June 11, 2007
Since I asked for it, and since so many were promptly forthcoming with a copy, I'd better give you a quick summary. Kubodera et al. have formally published their observations of the eight-armed deep sea squid, Taningia danae, that were in the news last February. There isn't much new information in the papers; it's all based on a handful of video observations of hunting squid in their native habitat, so it's more on the side of anecdote than anything else right now. It's still just plain cool.
That photo is of their video gear. It's a platform with lights and cameras that's lowered on a cable…