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 homemade squid presents:

The creator named her first creation Squiddartha, which is just . . . awesome. The scientific name for this species, I propose, must be Pillowteuthis squiddartha. And how about a common name? "Cuddlesquid" sounds about right to me.

Continuing with the cute, from Western Australia we have a girl and her squid. It's not that I find the sorrowful look in the dead squid's eyes cute; rather, it's adorable to see this rather modest catch being described as a "colossal calamari." Given the location and the full-body-length fins, it's almost certainly the Southern Calamary, Sepioteuthis australis, which is usually about a foot in mantle length. By comparison with all the reports of five-foot Humboldt squid from the west coast of North America, it seems positively puny!

Yup, those Humboldts are still hanging around, and anglers haven't gotten tired of catching them yet. There continue to be some beach strandings, and a new theory, about as ridiculous as that earthquake theory from La Jolla over the summer, has it that they actually froze to death. Creative!

Unfortunately, it's turned too cold, too fast and they froze to death, washing up onshore.

This is my skeptical face.