Ecology & Zoology

A new instance of Mesonychoteuthis hamiltonii, more commonly known as the colossal squid: A HUGE squid weighing 120 kilograms found off Portland [Australia, not Oregon] last week is believed to be a rare species to south-west waters.Local fisherman and boat operator Bob McPherson said his investigations pointed to the orange-coloured squid being a colossal type, slightly smaller than a giant squid caught off New Zealand last year.“It’s a pretty rare species for these waters,” he told The Standard.“I’ve never seen one as big as this. Its body was about two metres long, one metre wide and…

It was the year 2000, I think, and I was on a college field trip to the tidepools. The class was Invertebrate Zoology, so we were flipping rocks over and listing off the phyla as fast as we could identify them. Then someone lifted a big slab and gasped: there was a red octopus, chowing down on a shore crab. I remember this scene so vividly in part because I love octopuses, but also because of a comment the professor made: "This is remarkable, because it's really quite rare to see an act of predation in the wild." Surprising perhaps, but true. Predation events tend to happen very quickly.…

It was the year 2000, I think, and I was on a college field trip to the tidepools. The class was Invertebrate Zoology, so we were flipping rocks over and listing off the phyla as fast as we could identify them. Then someone lifted a big slab and gasped: there was a red octopus, chowing down on a shore crab. I remember this scene so vividly in part because I love octopuses, but also because of a comment the professor made: "This is remarkable, because it's really quite rare to see an act of predation in the wild." Surprising perhaps, but true. Predation events tend to happen very quickly.…

Most people don't know this, but there is a secret war going on in the animal kingdom; since before recorded history began, squirrels and rattlesnakes have been going at it.  Over time, some squirrels have even developed the ability to use rattlesnake scent as a means of concealing their own odor. But actual squirrels don't like being used in studies about rattlesnakes so Sanjay Joshi, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at U.C. Davis, has built "robosquirrels" that can help biology understand what is going on. The latest research centers on two squirrel…

As a gullible sucker myself, I appreciate the cultural tradition of having one day out of the year when I know not to take anyone seriously. Technologists may produce the most labor-intensive April Fools' Jokes, but cephalopods know how to have their fun, too. Here's the octopus "gesture to speech" technology that wowed us all just nine short days ago: And from Energy Live News, the most unexpect of renewables: A team of scientists from Belize have successfully harvested electricity from squid. The invertebrates have been discharging enough bioelectricity to run the lighting and…

One of the more whimsical squid news stories I've seen in a while: A squid, a dog, and a mini-mystery solved at a Minnesota lake."Of course, squid are not found in Minnesota lakes," reports journalist Al Edenloff. So true, and so charmingly put!Squid are not found in any lakes. Neither are octopuses, cuttlefish, or nautilus. Class Cephalopoda is exclusively marine, with the closest approximation to a freshwater representative still only tolerating a wee bit of rain with its seawater. Other mollusc groups, like snails and mussels, have members in both salt and freshwater--but not cephalopods.…

Could the big split among anti-science hippies occur over a cute little cat? PETA loves animals.  Greenpeace hates genetic modification and science in general because changes are only 'natural' if high-energy cosmic rays mutate things at random. What about when scientists use unnatural science to help save an endangered species? An African Black-footed Cat was born February 6, 2012, at the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans. The cool science aspect, or the creepy FrankenKitten aspect if you are a progressive, is that it was born to an ordinary domestic cat - the first of its…

An expedition to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has led to discovery of a new 'King of Wasps' - 80 years after it was first collected. Megalara garuda is pitch-black, has an enormous body size, and its males have long, sickle-shaped jaws.  It is one the largest known members of the crabronid subfamily Larrinae.  The species belongs into the digger wasp family, which is a diverse group of wasps with several thousands of species known from all over the world. Female digger wasps search for other insects as prey for their young and paralyze the prey by stinging it. Prey selection is…

The world's biggest squids (accurately named "giant" and "colossal") have the world's biggest eyes, which may seem like a no-brainer until you consider that they are by no means the world's biggest animals. And yet, their eyes are more than twice the size of a blue whale's. Why? A group of Swedish, American, and Israeli scientists (gotta love that multicultural research!) suggests that big squid need big eyes to see their big predators--sperm whales. Specifically, big eyes are great for spotting the luminous clouds kicked up by sperm whales as they jostle the bioluminescent plankton of…

Artist Laura Hines has done a couple of gorgeous illustrations of Humboldt squid. Humboldt Squid #1 (above) is a rendering of this photograph from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute: It's a great example of how illustration can improve on photography. The pencil clarifies and emphasizes detail that was obscured by the camera. Lovely work! h/t Squid.us (Yes yes, I know about the kerfuffle over colossal squid eyes the size of basketballs! I'm not sure what I can add, but I'll try to think of something erudite or at least amusing.)