Schneier on Security

A blog covering security and security technology.

« Interview with Me | Main | Identifying People using Anonymous Social Networking Data »

April 3, 2009

Learning About Giant Squid From Sperm Whale Stomachs

Interesting research:

By looking in the stomachs of three sperm whales stranded in the Bay of Biscay, Cherel recovered hundreds of beaks from 19 separate species -- 17 squids including the giant squid, the seven-arm octopus (the largest in the world) and the bizarre vampire squid. Together, these species represent a decent spread of the full diversity of deep-sea cephalopods.
He analysed the chemical composition of the beaks. and in particular, their ratio of carbon isotopes (carbon-13 compared to carbon-13) and their ratio of ratio of nitrogen isotopes (nitrogen-15 compared to nitrogen-14). These measurements are a reflection of both what and where the animals ate.

Levels of carbon-13 can tell us how deep an animal lives, whether it swims offshore or inshore, and whether it spends its time in the open ocean, or sticks close to its floor. All of the cephalopods' carbon-13 levels fell within a narrow range, indicating that all 19 species live in similar and overlapping parts of the ocean.

Tags: squid

Posted on April 3, 2009 at 4:28 PM • 10 Comments

To receive these entries once a month by e-mail, sign up for the Crypto-Gram Newsletter.

Comments

Yikes! • April 4, 2009 12:22 AM

Firefox's smart bookmarks truncates the title: "Learning About Giant Squid From Sperm ..."

Not Anonymous • April 4, 2009 9:08 AM

"carbon-13 compared to carbon-13"
while it is a typo in the original article, is's still nonsense.

Nostromo • April 4, 2009 9:30 AM

"the seven-arm octopus"

There's no such animal.
An octopus has eight flexible arms by definition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus

let me google that for you • April 4, 2009 9:41 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-arm_Octopus

brock • April 4, 2009 10:07 AM

beware the mighty septopus...
he's a crazy guy

Clive Robinson • April 4, 2009 10:14 AM

@ Yikes!

'Firefox's smart bookmarks truncates the title: "Learning About Giant Squid From Sperm ..."'

You might want to find out why they are called Sperm Whale then you might change your name ;)

Counter example • April 4, 2009 2:33 PM

Wikipedia's picture of the Seven-armed octopus shows... 8 arms.

It also explains why it's called Seven-armed. It's sorta the opposite of what we human males call a "third leg".

BF Skinner • April 6, 2009 6:14 AM

Vampire squids are cool! http://www.educatedearth.net/video.php?id=3061

Xyz • April 6, 2009 1:04 PM

I'm deducting coolness points on the basis of the fact that the beaks were found in the whales' stomachs and not dug out from gobs of ambergris.

TS • April 8, 2009 12:12 PM

@brock

not septo or more correctly, septi, those are latin.

Octopus is from the greek, so it would be heptapus.

Post a comment

Schneier.com is a personal website. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of BT.

Subscribe via Kindle

Blog Menu

Search

Powered by DuckDuckGo

Blog Home Page
100 Latest Comments

Archives by Date

2013 J F M A M J
2012 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2011 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2010 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2009 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2008 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2007 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2006 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2005 J F M A M J J A S O N D
2004 J F M A M J J A S O N D