Ecology & Zoology

A previously unnamed species of horse fly has been named in honor of American pop singer Beyoncé Knowles. Beyoncé just had a baby but this horse fly business is probably the best gift of all.  Well, maybe not, the baby might be more important to her, since she and husband Jay-Z had bulletproof glass and bodyguards put in place at the Upper East Side Lenox Hill hospital where the delivery occurred and I bet the fly doesn't have any bodyguards at all.   Apparently they are worried about some East Coast-West Coast violence thing among the premature babies, or that Alicia Keys would…

A long time ago, in an ocean far, far away . . . I'm sorry, I couldn't resist! I just couldn't resist. But of course it's not really true. Argentina and the British-owned Falkland Islands have been fighting over their squid resources since "a long time ago", but this latest news is hot off the press. And the ocean may feel "far, far away" to those of us in the northern hemisphere, but it's very close to home for all the squid fishermen in the Southern Ocean, and the civilians who depend on the economies they support. Now, according to The Telegraph, Argentina has reportedly started a "squid…

One of the more unusual cephalopods of my acquaintance (and I do not say this lightly) is the ram's horn squid, Spirula spirula. The species is named for its beautifully coiled internal shell, which is all most people (including me) have ever seen of it.by Fritz Geller-Grimm I wrote about these strange little fellows for Nautilus Night 2009. The occasion for revisiting them now is an article by Danielle Wright in the New Zealand Herald that mentions the prevalence of these shells on Whatipu Beach: The iron-rich sand is black against the white of the spirula spirula, or ram's horn,…

Last March I posted about a little problem with the east cost longfin squid fishery: The nets that fishermen use to catch longfin squid also ensnare butterfish. And butterfish populations are very low. In fact, in 2004 a stock assessment workshop determined that butterfish were officially overfished (read that phrase aloud--it's fun!).  Strict limits on butterfish bycatch keep squid fishers from catching as many squid as they'd like. If only they knew exactly where butterfish were on any given day, they could fish for squid in butterfish-free zones and skip the bycatch problem. As…

Last March I posted about a little problem with the east cost longfin squid fishery: The nets that fishermen use to catch longfin squid also ensnare butterfish. And butterfish populations are very low. In fact, in 2004 a stock assessment workshop determined that butterfish were officially overfished (read that phrase aloud--it's fun!).  Strict limits on butterfish bycatch keep squid fishers from catching as many squid as they'd like. If only they knew exactly where butterfish were on any given day, they could fish for squid in butterfish-free zones and skip the bycatch problem. As…

For the last two days we have had our BBC television naturalist Chris Packham presenting us with “Nature’s Weirdest Events”. Here are my three favourites from this session. Exploding toads In April 2005, around the mating time for toads, a thousand or more of these amphibians (Bufo bufo) were found in an exploded condition in the vicinity of a pond in Hamburg, which rapidly became known locally as “the Pond of Death”. Hamburgers were worried – was it something in the water? Was this due to pesticides, or more likely a viral or bacterial disease, maybe carried by racehorses nearby, which…

Squid Drop is an iPhone game* based on the premise that squid are negatively buoyant. Any serious iGamers must ask themselves: is it true? Barring the application of any external forces, would a squid sink to the depths of the sea? Never fear, the cephalopodiatrist is here to answer this pressing concern! Your typical squid is robust and active, packed with dense, heavy muscles. Not to mention the hard parts that are also heavier than water: the chitinous pen and braincase, and the calcified beak. This would all seem to be positive evidence for sinking squid. But squid have two options…

In the East Scotia Ridge deep beneath the Southern Ocean, hydrothermal vents including 'black smokers' reaching temperatures of up to 382 degrees Celsius have created a unique environment that lacks sunlight, but is rich in certain chemicals. It also has communities of species previously unknown to science on the seafloor. This hot, dark environment surrounding hydrothermal vents was explored using a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) and the researchers found new species of yeti crab, starfish, barnacles, sea anemones, and potentially an octopus. The images show huge colonies of the…

The first Circus of the Spineless of 2012 is up at Wild About Ants! Check it out for some very doable new year resolution suggestions. (Like "get to know tiny spiders"--we can all do with a little more arachnomania, can't we?) There's also a nice post linked about the color-changing octopus and squid that I neglected to cover here. I'll blog about sinking squid tomorrow, I promise! Sorry for the slow updates over the holiday season. My attention was diverted by some medical adventures as well as family time, but all is well now and I'll be coming back up to speed. Happy New Year!

Casual games with squid in them are the new hotness. No, I'm totally serious. There was Halloween Squid, Squibble, Squids, and now, Squid Drop: What a delightful excuse to talk about squid science! Now, where can I possibly find science in this app? A-ha! Crabs*! Anyone who's ever kept an octopus knows that octopuses loooove them some tasty crabmeat. It makes sense, because octopuses and crabs both live on the seafloor, right? So they crawl around together amongst the rocks and then--chomp. But what about squid--do they eat crabs, as proposed in Squid Drop? I've made a big deal before about…