Ecology & Zoology
Despite spending this holiday season at home, where the sun is shining, the grass is green, and the orange and palm trees sway, I've been metaphorically snowed under. Between wrestling a paper into submission (that was a pun! submission, like to a journal? hah? hee?) and preparing data for a conference presenation, squid blogging has fallen somewhat by the wayside.
But squid news continues relentlessly, never pausing for its chronicler's busy schedule. So, I give you the tentacular highlights that have accumulated over the last few weeks, starting with PW Style's truly large, totally amazing…
Female ducks can thank evolution for avoiding becoming impregnated by undesirable but aggressive males endowed with large corkscrew-shaped penises: vaginas with clockwise spirals that thwart oppositely spiraled males. That's right, males are literally screwed.
The research on this evolutionary 'battle of the sexes' at the genitalia level were described in the December 23 issue of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
"In species where forced copulation is common, males have evolved longer penises, but females have coevolved convoluted vaginas with dead-end cul-de-sacs…
I think this may be the best pop-sci treatment of the jumbo squid invasion that I've seen yet. Go, Christian Science Monitor!
For example, most invasion articles don't take the time to explain the nuanced history of the squid's presence in California, but here we learn:
When scientists dug through historical records, they discovered that the squid's northward advance wasn't entirely unprecedented. There were accounts from the 1930s of the creatures in Monterey Bay. But never in numbers comparable to what scientists observed now – schools many hundreds strong. And no one had ever seen them as…
Dark spots on flower petals are common across many angiosperm plant families and occur on some flowers such as lilies, orchids, and considerable research has been done on the physiological and behavioral mechanisms for how these spots attract pollinators, but what these spots are composed of, how they develop, and how they only appear on some but not all of the ray florets has long been a puzzle.
Dr. Meredith Thomas from the University of Cambridge and associates from England and South Africa focused on the South African endemic beetle daisy Gorteria diffusa (Asteraceae), which has a…
Thanks to the zillions of friendly people who sent me links to the coconut octopus story, I can share accounts from slashdot, treehugger, new scientist, the AP, and of course, the BBC.
Much indignant kerfuffle has resulted on the cephalopod mailing list (yes, of course I am subscribed to one) and it boils down to three points:
1. It's not the first time this behavior has been observed, photographed, or filmed. (This video is from April 2008.)2. Octopuses pick up, move, and carry all kinds of objects around all the time. It's why aquarists pay a lot of attention to environmental enrichment in…
Hey, I'm in New Zealand, home of the colossal squid! I believe--oh yes, Scientific Blogging has seen mention of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltonii before. Suffice it to say here that M. hamiltonii, the colossal squid, is the largest squid in the world discovered to date. Yes, larger than giant squid. The only place you can see one (unless you are lucky (?) enough to be on a fishing boat in the Southern Ocean) is on display at the Te Papa museum in Wellington.
Sadly, although I am in New Zealand, I won't have time to go to Wellington, and thus the colossal squid will continue in its tragic state of…
This seems like something obvious that I should really know, but I worry that I'm forgetting something.
Squids, octopuses, and cuttlefish all squirt ink. (Nautilus, the throwback cephalopod, does not.) The sea hare, a particularly large instantiation of sea slugs, also squirts ink.
Does any other animal in the whole world produce ink?
Bombardier beetles spray aerosolized toxins. Texas horned lizards shoot blood out of their eyes.
But I think cephalopods and sea hares are the only inkers!
My google news alert for "squid" frequently pops up recipes and restaurant reviews, most of which I dismiss out of hand. But a critical mass of alerts mentioning squid ink pasta, risotto, and other dishes finally drove me to a more thorough investigation.
I found a great article on gourmet.com called Sleuthing Squid Ink. This guy really did his homework: he made five different squid ink dishes from Italy, Spain, the Philippines, and Japan. Even more admirably, he talked with my pal Stephalopod, an awesome lady who researches squid ink, in order to figure out the chemical underpinnings of…
Today's Ecoview column in the Tuscaloosa News addresses this question:
Q: Can you tell me what a group of squid is called? A squad? A school? I’ve tried to look it up, but I haven’t seen anything definite that says, “A group of squid is called ... ” I would really like to know.
A: As you are no doubt aware, a collective noun is a word that describes a group of things. And collective nouns for animals are an exercise in creativity, from a shrewdness of apes to a pod of baby alligators, a murder of crows to an exaltation of larks and a scold of jays. I believe the most common word to describe…
Humboldt squid are apparently still swarming off the coast of northern California, according to this account from Marin:
The fishing began roughly 30 miles from shore when captain Rick Powers killed the motor and told his 28 clients to drop their lines to the bottom, a full 600 feet below, where a mass of pulp loomed on the fish finder screen: Humboldt squid by the thousands. These animals, which grow as large as 50 pounds in just one year of life, don't fuss or finick when two dozen lures appear before them out of the blue. Constantly ravenous, these animals eat first, ask questions later,…