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It’s rare:
Fishermen caught a 19-foot-long giant squid off the coast of Ireland on Monday, only the fifth to be seen there since 1673.
Also the first in 22 years.
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In the oval squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana, males use body patterns to communicate with both females and other males:
To gain insight into the visual communication associated with each behavior in terms of the body patterning’s key components, the co-expression frequencies of two or more components at any moment in time were calculated in order to assess uniqueness when distinguishing one behavior from another. This approach identified the minimum set of key components that, when expressed together, represents an unequivocal visual communication signal. While the interpretation of the signal and the associated response of the receiver during visual communication are difficult to determine, the concept of the component assembly is similar to a typical language within which individual words often have multiple meanings, but when they appeared together with other words, the message becomes unequivocal. The present study thus demonstrates that dynamic body pattering, by expressing unique sets of key components acutely, is an efficient way of communicating behavioral information between oval squids.
News article.
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A “mysterious squid”—big and red—washed up on a beach in Carteret County, North Carolina. Someone found it, still alive, and set it back in the water after taking some photos of it. Squid scientists later decided it was a diamondback squid.
So, you think that O’Shea might know the identity of the squid Carey Walker found on the Portsmouth Island Beach, just by looking at an emailed photo or two? Indeed, he did. After a couple of days of back-and-forth emails—it can be difficult to connect consistently with a world-famous man who lives now in Australia—he reported that, while unusual to be seen on beaches in our parts, this was not a particularly unusual squid: It was a diamondback squid, known in scientific nomenclature as Thysanoteuthis rhombus.
T. rhombus, also known as the diamond squid or diamondback squid, is a large species that grows to about 100 centimeters in length, which translates to about 39 inches, and ranges in weight from 20 to 30 kilograms, which translates to 44 to 50 pounds. Which means that, if nothing else, Carey Walker is pretty good at estimating the weight and length of big red squids he picks up on remote beaches.
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Wow, is this cool.
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In another symptom of climate change, Chile’s largest squid producer “plans to diversify its offering in the future, selling sea urchin, cod and octopus, to compensate for the volatility of giant squid catches….”
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This is just plain weird:
Rosenthal, a neurobiologist at the Marine Biological Laboratory, was a grad student studying a specific protein in squid when he got an an inkling that some cephalopods might be different. Every time he analyzed that protein’s RNA sequence, it came out slightly different. He realized the RNA was occasionally substituting A’ for I’s, and wondered if squid might apply RNA editing to other proteins. Rosenthal, a grad student at the time, joined Tel Aviv University bioinformaticists Noa Liscovitch-Braur and Eli Eisenberg to find out.
In results published today, they report that the family of intelligent mollusks, which includes squid, octopuses and cuttlefish, feature thousands of RNA editing sites in their genes. Where the genetic material of humans, insects, and other multi-celled organisms read like a book, the squid genome reads more like a Mad Lib.
So why do these creatures engage in RNA editing when most others largely abandoned it? The answer seems to lie in some crazy double-stranded cloverleaves that form alongside editing sites in the RNA. That information is like a tag for RNA editing. When the scientists studied octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish, they found that these species had retained those vast swaths of genetic information at the expense of making the small changes that facilitate evolution. “Editing is important enough that they’re forgoing standard evolution,” Rosenthal says.
He hypothesizes that the development of a complex brain was worth that price. The researchers found many of the edited proteins in brain tissue, creating the elaborate dendrites and axons of the neurons and tuning the shape of the electrical signals that neurons pass. Perhaps RNA editing, adopted as a means of creating a more sophisticated brain, allowed these species to use tools, camouflage themselves, and communicate.
Yet more evidence that these bizarre creatures are actually aliens.
Three more articles. Academic paper.
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Great Victorian animal-combat scene featuring a giant squid.
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Available on eBay.
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News from the South Atlantic:
While the outlook is good at present, it is too early to predict what the final balance of this season will be. The sector is totally aware that the 2016 harvest started well, but then it registered a strong decline.
Last year only 60,315 tonnes of Illex squid were landed, well below the 126,670 tonnes landed in 2015 and the 168,729 tonnes recorded in 2014.
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Here are some squid cooking tips.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven’t covered.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.