Ecology & Zoology

Polar bears’ noses are phenomenal. They smell a seal’s fart through a light year of snow and ice or something like that. Polar bears are cute, strong, beautiful, pure awesomeness all the way. Come on: they sleep on snow then swim a few rounds in ice water to cool off! I adore them, I love ‘em, I really do. Now they disappear. Also the number of lions is drastically plummeting, due to poaching and other factors. What to do about it? Many animals live in fear of lions that hunt them down and rip their bodies apart, often without the quick kill that is supposedly the method of the oh-so-…

My friend and colleague Judit Pungor, a graduate student in Stuart Thompson's lab at Stanford's marine station, drew the most amazing poster of how squids see: It's so adorable, and so educational. Watch out Larry Gonick!

José Marian, the author of this paper about sperm injection, very kindly and promptly provided me with a copy. I began reading with an enthusiasm which only increased as I proceeded through the article. It's short, clear, and tantalizing. I was fascinated by hypodermic insemination when I first learned about it as an undergraduate. I wrote my final paper for a class called Sex and Evolution on the topic of coerced mating, focusing primarily on hypodermic insemination (with a brief aside about ducks). This type of mating is by no means unique to squid--it's been found in disparate creatures…

Squid sex is both discreet and discrete. Discreet, because usually the sexual organs remain hidden. The only visible activity looks more like a handshake than like intercourse, as the male uses one arm to pass sperm to the female. Discrete, because the sperm comes in neat, quantized packages rather than free-flowing semen. These packages are called spermatophores, and they're quite complex. In addition to a mass of sperm, they have a variety of tools for attaching themselves to the female's body. As explained in a recent paper in the Journal of Molluscan Studies, there are two basic ways that…

My husband has an enormous head. Sometimes this concerns me, when I consider the degree to which skull size may have a genetic basis and the fact that we'll probably reproduce at some point. That has to fit through there? OW. But maybe I should be grateful. I'll certainly have an easier time of it than female Atlantic bobtail squid (Sepiola atlantica). These mamas, according to a recent study on their spawning behavior, can lay up to one and a half times their own body weight in eggs. That would be like me, at 125 pounds, producing 187.5 pounds of baby. WOW. She looks tired. It sounds…

Eek, sorry, I kinda disappeared for a few days. There was really good powder, what can I say? I can at least draw a tenuous connection between driving up to the mountains and today's blog topic! If you've ever tried to change altitude with a cold, you know how much trouble your sinuses can cause. These pockets of air in our heads have to equalize with the air pressure outside our heads, or else: PAIN. Most of us just stick it out or pop some pseudoephedrine, but some people who suffer from recurring sinus infections require surgery to fix the condition. Unfortunately, the cure can be worse…

A curious tale! Not least because the writer has no compunctions about referring to squid as fish. While the group "fish" is by no means taxonomically rigorous, and comprises creatures as diverse as hagfish, sharks, and coealacanths, the one thing all fish have in common is that they're vertebrates. Squid are squarely in the invertebrate camp, and therefore excluded from the fish club. Linguistic quibbles aside, this really is strange: EXPERTS have no answers on what has caused the death of thousands of squid in the River Derwent this week. Dead and dying arrowhead squid have been washed…

That was a joke. I don't think it's actually revolutionary. But Shimano sure does! "Shimano says its Egi System will not only catch you more squid but will make your squid fishing even more enjoyable." Here is their Egi squid-catching System in visual format: See all those colorful jigs? (Jigs are lures made specifically to catch squid.) Do you want to know what is so awesome about them? Shimano developed 3 colour schemes to cover different environments: “natural” for general presentations, “shrimp/ prawn” when squid require a more realistic presentation, and “Keimura” in deeper water or…

I've been tracking the Illex argentinus fishery for a while now--remember 2009 was the worst year ever, and while 2010 was better it was still far from a complete recovery. How's 2011 shaping up? In Argentina: The owners of 32 jiggers operating in the region say they are pleased with the current level of catches and are optimistic about the abundance of the cephalopod for the rest of the season which begun February first. . . . However in spite of the current optimism the biological status of the squid fishery is unknown. And in the Falklands, where the season hasn't opened yet: Predictions…

The Smithsonian has posted cool videos of Clyde Roper talking about his passion for the giant squid, Architeuthis. Two of the videos are short excerpts of an interview with Roper, and one is a ten-minute documentary with some very neat footage from Roper's squid-hunting expedition. As you will have gathered from watching the videos, Clyde Roper works at the Smithsonian and has a fabulous beard. He is also the American in what I think of as the Big Three of giant squid. His compatriots are New Zealand's Steve O'Shea and Japan's Tsunemi Kubodera. They are all brilliant, fascinating, very…