Squid typically die after spawning. Their orphaned eggs are left alone in the cold brine to develop and hatch, never knowing a mother's tender caress.
But as in all of biology, there are exceptions.
It's strangely appropriate that the second of these exceptions has entered, stage left, just as I am preparing to exit, stage right, in order to engage in the intensive parental care typical of humans. I'll be spawning within the next few weeks, and taking a hiatus from the blogosphere to focus on my in-home developmental biology experiment.
So let me leave you with the remarkable image of a mama squid caring for her young--only the second species of brooding squid to be discovered, ever! And by some of my favorite people, too: Stephanie Bush, Henk-Jan Hoving, Chrissy Huffard, Bruce Robison, and Lou Zeidberg. Here's Figure 1 from their hot-off-the-presses paper Brooding and sperm storage by the deep-sea squid Bathyteuthis berryi:
A. Mama holding her eggs. B. Zoom on the egg sheet. C. Zoom-zoom on the embryos.
As my own hatchling grows, I may re-emerge on social networks before I start blogging again, so if you want to make sure you don't miss any squiddy goodness, you can follow me on Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
In the meantime, the internet hosts many other superb sources of cephalopod news, most notably TONMO. And Deep-Sea News rarely misses a good squid story, especially with their new mascot.
Keep it tentacular, friends!
