Apparently, the female ancestor of present-day polar bears was a brown bear, living in what presently corresponds to Ireland. An international research team has used mitochondrial DNA (see figure 1)…

It's totally a thing! The vast majority of squid caught off the west coast of the Americas, both North and South, is shipped to the other side of the Pacific Ocean to be processed in Asia. Much of it…

A mystery has emerged in the past three weeks that may have a very simple answer -- but an answer that we're not aware of -- and that's the mystery of what happened to the butterflies? The question…

It never fails--I take some time off, and a giant squid shows up! A few years ago, it was a half-eaten carcass found floating in Monterey Bay. Every teuthologist dreams of a giant squid sighting in…

You know a problem is real when academics say they don't need 5 more years of funding to know what is going to happen.   But that's the situation in the Great Lakes and the threated posed by…

Yoda, a 14-year old female dog of mixed breed (chihuahua and Chinese crested dog) has won the World's Ugliest Dog competition, held in Northern California. Abandoned behind an apartment building, the…

One of the nice things about studying a big charismatic animal, like the Humboldt squid, is that you don't have to convince anyone that your science is cool. People are already interested in your…

Whenever friends or family learn that there exists in the depths of the sea a particular species known as the Dana Octopus Squid, they draw the obvious conclusion that I must have been named after…

Wish I could go see this exhibit! Creatures of the Abyss is on display at the Royal Alberta Museum, The exhibition’s focal point is a fibreglass model of an eight-metre long colossal squid caught in…

Chuck over at Ya Like Dags? just posted a compelling piece called 101 Uses for Shark Puke. His list may not have reached (anywhere near) 101 uses, but obviously the most important use is determining…